It was 2.30 p.m. Andrew Motion was ‘In Poetic Conversation’ with Vikram Seth in the Big Tent; Will Self and Janet Street-Porter were discussing country walks in the Middle Tent; and Dan Dickson was chairing a panel of science fiction writers in the School Room. There was nobody in the Green Room except an old man who looked rather like Richard Ingrams, snoring quietly over a copy of the Independent. But of course! This was a literary festival, so it was Ingrams. Francis gave the snoozing satirist a respectful nod, then headed over to the shelves beyond the coffee machine to get what he needed. Without pausing, he picked out two of Laetitia’s festival albums, 1998 and 1999, cut through their restraining brass cords with his new pair of pliers, then tiptoed off at speed towards the exit, looking neither to left nor right.
He found the Saab in the car park and sat in the passenger seat for five minutes, marking up various pages with yellow Post-It notes. Then he purred gently out of town, enjoying the latent power of the big engine as he kept strictly to the speed limit. Beyond the 30 mph sign, he put his foot down along the narrow green lanes. As he came out onto the wider open stretch of road before Tittlewell he heard the familiar trill of his mobile. He reached down to slide it out of his jacket pocket. DCI JULIE, read the screen. He guessed he’d better pull in before speaking to a police officer.
‘Francis Meadowes.’
‘No hands-free, Francis? It’s Julie Morgan.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Years of experience. Plus of course the delay. I hope you’ve stopped that car.’
‘I have now. Fully legal. How can I help you?’
‘As long as the key’s in the ignition you’re committing an offence, but we’ll pass over that. I’m sorry to bother you, Francis. I just wanted to check something out.’
‘OK.’
‘We’ve had a statement from Bryce’s long-term partner, Scarlett Paton-Jones, saying that on Sunday afternoon, between four thirty and six, you were interviewing her in her cottage outside Tittlewell.’
‘I can confirm that, Julie. Though I’d put my arrival time a little later than four thirty. Sometime after five, I’d say. But if you’re checking her alibi, she was there alone with her twin daughters when I turned up and her Turkish au pair didn’t appear with her car till just before I left an hour later.’
‘Thank you. That’s very helpful.’
‘So how are you getting on with Rory and the gang?’
‘We’re working through them as we speak.’
‘Nothing you want to tell me?’
‘In return for us agreeing not to prosecute, Rory’s confessed to possession of LSD. The reason he was so freaked out is that he had three tabs in his wallet – and one of them had gone missing.’
‘When was that?’
‘Sometime on Sunday, he thinks. Before he went into the festival.’
‘After Grace returned?’
‘That’s what he’s not sure about.’
‘So he says.’
‘So he says. Funnily enough, I’m inclined to believe him. He’s so desperate not to get a record, he’s singing like the proverbial canary. Anyway, his story is that he left his wallet in his room, in a jacket on the back of a chair, but didn’t notice what had gone missing till he got into Mold at teatime on Sunday.’
‘He didn’t take it himself and then forget about it?’
Julie laughed, but not for long. ‘Apparently not. But he clearly thinks he’s indirectly responsible for her death. Which would mean, if I decided to be uncharitable, that in addition to perverting the course of justice, and possession of two Class A substances, and a strong suspicion of supplying others with same, he might be looking at manslaughter. Not ideal for someone who wants to be taken on by a reputable chambers next year.’
‘No wonder he was so nervy. Well, there’s your second drug. The question is: how did it get from his wallet into her bloodstream?’
‘Quite. While you’re on, I thought you might be interested in something else that’s come in: the preliminary result of the Bryce Peabody autopsy.’
Of course he would! Even down the line, Francis could tell that Julie was enjoying this.
‘Fill me in.’
‘Carbon dioxide levels in Bryce’s blood confirm our suspicion that he was suffocated.’
‘No . . .’
‘More to the point,’ Julie continued, ‘some time on the Saturday evening he took – or was given – a powerful sedative, Zimovane. As I understand it from our police doctor, a good dose can render you insensible for several hours. There was a blister pack of this drug in his washbag, so it’s not unduly suspicious – but I was rather hoping you might have Priya with you, see whether she could shed any light on his recent nocturnal habits. Because Scarlett told us he was a sound sleeper and never took pills.’
‘Sorry, Julie, I’m on my own.’ Francis contemplated telling her that he was on his way to Scarlett’s right now, then decided against it.
‘If you speak to Priya, tell her to give me a call, would you?’
‘Will do. So how are the IT guys getting on with those laptops?’
‘It’s a painstaking business, dredging up files that have been deleted. I’ll let you know as soon as we have anything.’
She clicked off. Francis sensed two things: she wasn’t telling him everything; and she knew that he too was holding something back. Well, he thought, he was lucky she was being as open with him as she was; unless she had some other motive, she clearly valued his help. As for him, he would decide on whether to fill her in on what he’d seen in Fleur’s film once he’d understood its full import.
He pulled out and gathered speed, on past the Black Bull and the gnarled tree. Outside the cottage the gate of the car boot was up. The front door was open. Scarlett was kneeling on the floor just inside, boxes and suitcases all around her.
‘Are you leaving us?’ Francis asked, walking in.
Scarlett turned. ‘Hello. You again? No sooner do I get rid of the police than my private detective friend turns up.’
‘Crime writer friend. So they’ve taken your statement?’
‘Certainly have. And then stuck around. My Family Liaison Officer’s been here since Sunday evening. Willing little bird called Patricia. A little too willing, if you ask me. Claimed to be offering me support, but was actually a big fat snoop. Until I had the brilliant idea of telling her I’d been talking to you on Sunday afternoon, I think they even had me in the frame for this other poor girl I’ve been reading about in the papers.’
‘You haven’t been into Mold then?’
‘No. Couldn’t face all that “I’m sorry for your loss” stuff when I don’t even know what I feel myself. Luckily, Patricia was so desperate to be my friend I didn’t even need to send Nurjan in to do the shopping.’
Francis looked around at the half-finished packing. ‘Have you got time for a chat?’
‘Are you any closer to an answer?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You’re not going to tell me more than that?’
‘Not unless you sit down with me.’
She looked at her watch. ‘You’ll need to keep it brief.’
They sat with a cafetière just inside the French doors to the garden. The sunshine had gone and the sky was now filled with dark grey cloud. A cool breeze was picking up. Down on the lawn Nurjan was still playing with the twins. Loud shrieks drifted up intermittently.
‘You’ve told them?’
‘When PC Patricia turned up it was hard not to.’
‘How have they taken it?’
‘I told them their daddy is in heaven, and that seems to be some consolation. But I don’t think it’s sunk in properly just yet. With me neither. I’ve surprised myself by not shedding a single tear. Is that awful?’ She pressed her lips together in a tight smile. ‘So, anyway, how can I help you?’
‘I was going to ask,’ Francis said, ‘if you could tell me about your relationship with Dan Dickson.’
‘I thought we’d covered this last time. I’ve known Dan for years. I always thought his success had more to do with self-belief and self-promotion than any profound talent. Bryce had an ongoing problem with him. What more is there to say?’ She paused. ‘Don’t tell me you still suspect him of having anything to do with … all this? He may be a pretentious arse, but I hardly think he’s a murderer.’
Francis shrugged. ‘You haven’t answered my question, have you?’
‘I’m not sure I understand …’
‘I’m afraid you understand all too well. Perhaps you’re wondering how I found out. That you and Dan were an item. Off and on, but mostly on, for the best part of a year, before your kids were born, long before you and Bryce came up with the idea of an open marriage.’
You had to hand it to her, he thought, she was a splendid bluffer. ‘I can’t imagine who told you that,’ she replied, and those pale blue eyes flashed. ‘Mischievous misinformation, whoever it was. As I told you, I’ve known Dan for years. He was part of the same loose scene that I was, up in London in the 1990s. If you must know, he shacked up for a bit with a friend of mine, Tilly Bardwell. But no, never with me. He’s not my type.’
Francis met her gaze levelly. ‘Are you sure about that?’
Now Scarlett was on her feet. ‘How dare you come to my house and accuse me of things that are not just hurtful, but completely untrue. I was trying to offer you some help. When I’m extremely busy trying to get off to London. But if this is going to be your tack, I shall have to ask you to finish your coffee and leave.’
Francis got up slowly. As he did so, he pulled from his bag one of the two albums he’d pinched from the Green Room – MOLD FESTIVAL YEARBOOK 1998. ‘Laetitia was kind enough to show me this,’ he said. ‘A great idea, I must say. You get a real feel of how it must have been. Back in the day.’ Francis opened it at one of the pages that he had marked with Post-It notes. ‘How young you look. Bryce with barely a bag under his eyes, Dan with all his hair, you and Tilly as fresh as daisies. What great pals you clearly were. Staying out for the new lit fest at the same run-down cottage in Tittlewell, just the four of you. No kids, of course, to complicate things. It’s an amazing machine, the camera, isn’t it? Catches those telling little looks and gestures that even the best portrait painter would struggle with. Look at those lips of yours on Dan’s hard stubble. The way your hand cradles round his neck. Tilly’s face is a picture. Of brilliantly controlled jealousy. Did she know? What had happened – or was about to happen?’
Francis flipped to the next album. ‘Here you all are again, the following year, lined up in the garden of the White Hart, having a great laugh by the looks of it. So what happened to change all that? Was it just that Dan’s Dispatches from the E Zone rocketed him into the talent stratosphere while Bryce’s debut never got off the ground? That must have been terribly galling for Bryce. To see Dan so lauded. Interviewed everywhere. Described as an enfant terrible, a description he had aspired to since college days.’
Francis turned to look at Scarlett; she was listening now, that was for sure. ‘But was that all?’ he continued. ‘Or was Bryce’s turning away from Dan something that you encouraged? Because you and he had fallen apart by then and you could no longer bear the sight of him? Or perhaps you could bear the sight of him too much. A sight which, unfortunately, met your eyes every day of your life.’
‘I’m sorry, I’ve completely lost you,’ Scarlett said, with a brittle laugh. ‘Where is this absurd sequence of allegations going now?’
‘I’m talking about the twins, of course.’
Now she looked scared.
Francis pressed on. ‘They weren’t Bryce’s, were they? When you unexpectedly got pregnant, you panicked. You begged Dan to do the decent thing, make your relationship public, take them, and you, on. But he wouldn’t, would he? He didn’t want to be tied down. And he had his brand to think about, though you mightn’t have called it that then. Dangerous, attractive, single, traveller, writer. He wasn’t about to chuck that away to become knee-deep in nappies, was he?’ Francis couldn’t help a chuckle. ‘Though perhaps if he’d known how lucrative the whole Family Man franchise would turn out to be, he might have gone for it.’
Scarlett was shaking her head. ‘This is a ludicrous idea. If … if . . . I had been involved with Dan and he was the father of my children … why … why didn’t I just tell everybody?’
‘Because you realised that if you did, you’d have nothing. Here you were, this beautiful young woman who had entranced two literary lion cubs, and now the cub who was roaring like a proper king of the jungle suddenly wanted nothing to do with you. If you’d exposed him, and his rejection of you, you’d have lost not just face but Bryce. And you didn’t want that, did you? Bryce had his Bloomsbury flat, money, a wide circle of friends that he shared with you. If you couldn’t hold on to Dan, you’d sure as heck better hold on to Bryce. Where would you have been if he’d gone too? Most of your so-called joint friends would have taken his side. And then you’d have been a single mother of two struggling on child benefit and looking for a part-time job to keep you going. For all your nicely spoken manner, your family has no money; your father, the rural dean, was always above such things. Your career as a freelance journalist hadn’t taken off; now the babies were going to make pursuing that a whole lot more difficult. So you told Bryce the twins were his and prayed that he would embrace fatherhood. Dan agreed to keep the secret and everything was tickety-boo. The girls were born. The Hampstead house was bought. Bryce proved to be, as you’d hoped, a doting dad. He was soon pushing them around the Heath in a double buggy while you were safe and comfortable. You met up regularly with his influential contacts. Before you knew it you had your column in the Sentinel about the day-to-day difficulties of being a mother. You had pin money and respect.’
Scarlett said nothing; but her face, tense and pale, spoke volumes.
‘Then what happened? Within two years you’d agreed to an open marriage. Was that really as consensual a decision as you made it out to be? In the frankly unlikely little sketch you gave me earlier …’
‘Of course it was consensual,’ said Scarlett angrily.
‘You were initially jealous,’ Francis continued, ‘when you realised things had got far too serious with Anna Copeland. But you didn’t chuck Bryce out, did you? You couldn’t. Not being married, you had no leverage. The new house was in his name and so was this place. It was best just to let things roll along. The Anna thing would end one day, because he was never going to leave his beloved girls, was he? At least while he thought they were his. You knew him well enough to know that he was never going to give Anna the baby she wanted either, that that was just another of his famous promises.
‘And then, suddenly, three months ago, along came Priya. To blow the whole thing apart. What had happened to your feckless philanderer? He seemed reformed, smitten, serious. About an obviously very determined young woman who could easily give him another family.
‘Now you really had to fight. To cling on to what you could. Hampstead, this cottage, the money. You suddenly realised how few rights you had. Could you bear the thought of Priya, next year not just at the White Hart but out here too, in this place you loved so much? Sitting in this chair, with this window, this view. Pregnant perhaps with another little creature for Bryce to fall for. This time truly his. I don’t think you could.’
Scarlett looked defeated. On the beautiful old clock on the mantelpiece Francis could hear the seconds ticking by. ‘How do you know all this?’ she asked.
‘Looking at those albums helped me a lot,’ he said. ‘But don’t forget also, in this tight little world you exist in, your business is rarely your own. There are others out there who’ve been keeping a close eye on what’s going on.’
‘Who precisely are you talking about?’
‘I think I should keep my sources to myself.’
‘Virginia – blinking – Westcott?’
‘I really couldn’t say.’ For a would-be detective, Francis had a hopeless poker face.
‘That interfering bitch! Of course it’s her. Who else round here knows that my father was a rural dean. That Bryce always wanted to be an enfant terrible. God! She’s just unable to leave him alone, isn’t she? I suppose if you’ve heard it all from her there’s no point denying it. I’m amazed, though, that she knew about the twins. I thought that was one thing Dan and I had managed to keep to ourselves …’
Francis looked down at the table. For a moment his eye fixed on the empty cafetière, with its dark sludge of coffee grounds below the curving spring of the plunger. ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘I did get quite a lot of this story from Virginia. But she didn’t tell me about the twins.’
‘Who then?’ Scarlett paused. ‘Not Dan?’
‘I worked that bit out for myself,’ Francis said. ‘Perhaps it was because when I drove out here the other afternoon I’d come straight from Dan, and there they were again, those same intense, questioning, alive brown eyes …’
‘I see,’ said Scarlett. Then: ‘So you don’t think Virginia knows?’
‘She didn’t say anything to me about it. And she was in a very confiding mood.’
‘Come on, it can’t just have been some vague resemblance of eyes. What else put you onto this?’
Francis explained about Fleur’s video, about his interview with Terry – They’re not yours. ‘Suddenly it all clicked into place. I knew Dan was pretty furious about Bryce’s attack, but maybe he’d been goaded more than any of us realised.’
‘I still don’t see why he would have told him about the girls though.’
‘He’d been kicked, publicly, where it hurt and he had to get him back. He was drunk, and very, very angry. He went nuclear.’
There was silence in the room. As the clock ticked on, Scarlett seemed to be thinking it all through. ‘Funnily enough,’ she said, eventually, ‘Dan used to look up to Bryce. Then, as you surmised, he had his success and all that changed. I found it sad. Two clever men, with a great friendship, spoilt by a silly competitiveness. We’ve only got one life, haven’t we?’
Or no life at all, thought Francis. ‘You don’t think Dan could have taken it further?’ he asked.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘That night.’
‘What? Followed Bryce back to the White Hart and done him in? I really don’t.’
‘I agree with you. I think what we have there is the explanation of the bruise on Bryce’s cheek, but nothing more. So who was it? Who really did have the motivation to kill him? Not you, I hope.’
‘I thought you might be coming to this. As you’ve worked out so cleverly, I did have every reason. I was scared of what Priya might do; she’d got her claws so heavily into him. I’ve been a fool, letting us drift on as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” all these years. If it had come to a fight, I probably wouldn’t have been able to hold onto this place. And now he’s dead – unless he’s changed his will, which I’m ninety-five per cent sure he hasn’t – this is mine, as is Hampstead and the Bloomsbury flat. So I appreciate it doesn’t look good for me. But you have to believe me, it’s not really my style to go round murdering people.’
‘Why do I have to believe you?’
‘What about that poor journalist girl? How did I get to her? When I was speaking to you. Have you got an answer to that?’
‘I didn’t get out here till five thirty. She was alone at Wyveridge from just after four o’clock. It’s a fifteen-minute drive from here to there.’
‘But Nurjan had the car. It’s a bit more than a fifteen-minute walk, I think.’
‘Your au pair turned up right at the end of our interview. You told me she’d been shopping in town. I didn’t notice her carrying any bags when she got out.’
‘Oh come on! They were in the car.’ Scarlett chuckled dismissively. ‘If you really want to think I’ve got something to do with this, what can I say? You have absolutely no evidence. So if you’re done, I shall wish you goodbye. I have my packing to finish.’
‘Are you off to London tonight?’
‘As it happens, we’re not. I always like to go first thing, when the roads are empty and the girls are half-asleep.’
‘The police don’t mind you going?’
‘PC Patricia told me I was free to leave whenever.’
Francis shifted from foot to foot. ‘May I quickly use your loo before I head off?’
‘If you must. There’s one on this floor at the far end. Or just up the stairs here. Second door on the left.’
Francis had been hoping she would say that. Once upstairs, he paced on down the corridor and into what was clearly the master bedroom. There was a king-sized bed, covered in a white waffle pattern eiderdown; beyond was the en suite bathroom. Francis hadn’t dared to even imagine such a result, but there they were, on the top shelf of the mirrored cupboard, right above the sink: two packets of Zimovane, one half used.
Francis pulled out his mobile and took a quick photo; then a second, wider shot to establish where the cupboard was. Hadn’t PC Patricia seen them? If she had, why were they not already in a plastic police evidence bag? Or had she not been briefed at that point on the Zimovane element? TIE, pah.
By the bed was a white phone. Francis picked it up quickly and dialled his own mobile, waited for the first buzz, then put it down. Heading back, he nipped into the other upstairs toilet and pulled the flush.
‘One last question,’ he asked, as Scarlett showed him out of the front door. ‘When he was with you, did Bryce ever need to use sleeping pills?’
She gave him a very measured look. ‘Funnily enough,’ she said, ‘PC Patricia asked me that too. No, for your information Bryce always slept like a log. I’ve had a few problems with insomnia myself, especially recently. But Bryce was infuriating in that way. Head on the pillow and he’d be gone.’