Murder Most Merry

SUPPER WITH MISS SHIVERS – Peter Lovesey

The door was stuck. Something inside was stopping it from opening, and Fran was numb with cold. School had broken up for Christmas that afternoon—”Lord dismiss us with Thy blessing”— and the jubilant kids had given her a blinding headache. She’d wobbled on her bike through the London traffic, two carriers filled with books suspended from the handlebars. She’d endured exhaust fumes and maniac motorists, and now she couldn’t get into her own flat. She cursed, let the bike rest against her hip, and attacked the door with both hands.

“It was quite scary, actually.” she told Jim when he got in later. “I mean, the door opened perfectly well when we left this morning. We could have been burgled. Or it could have been a body lying in the hall.”

Jim, who worked as a systems analyst, didn’t have the kind of imagination that expected bodies behind doors. “So what was it—the doormat?”

“Get knotted. It was a great bundle of Christmas cards wedged under the door. Look at them. I blame you for this, James Palmer.”

“Me?”

Now that she was over the headache and warm again, she enjoyed poking gentle fun at Jim. “Putting our address book on your computer and running the envelopes through the printer. This is the result. We’re going to be up to our eyeballs in cards. I don’t know how many you sent, but we’ve heard from the plumber, the dentist, the television repairman, and the people who moved us in, apart from family and friends. You must have gone straight through the address book. I won’t even ask how many stamps you used.”

“What an idiot,” Jim admitted. “I forgot to use the sorting function.”

“I left some for you to open.”

“I bet you’ve opened all the ones with checks inside,” said Jim. “I’d rather eat first.”

“I’m slightly mystified by one,” said Fran. “Do you remember sending to someone called Miss Shivers?”

“No. I’ll check if you like. Curious name.”

“It means nothing to me. but she’s invited us to a meal.”

Fran handed him the card—one of those desolate, old-fashioned snow scenes of someone dragging home a log. Inside, under the printed greetings, was the signature E. Shivers (Miss) followed by Please make my Christmas— come for supper seven next Sunday, 23rd. In the corner was an address label.

“Never heard of her,” said Jim. “Must be a mistake.”

“Maybe she sends her cards by computer,” said Fran, and added, before he waded in. “I don’t think it’s a mistake, Jim. She named us on the envelope. I’d like to go.”

“For crying out loud—Didmarsh is miles away. Berkshire or somewhere. We’re far too busy.”

“Thanks to your computer, we’ve got time in hand,” Fran told him with a smile.

The moment she’d seen the invitation, she’d known she would accept. Three or four times in her life she’d felt a similar impulse and each time she had been right. She didn’t think of herself as psychic or telepathic, but sometimes she felt guided by some force that couldn’t be explained scientifically. A good force, she was certain. It had convinced her that she should marry no one else but Jim, and after three years together she had no doubts. Their love was unshakable. And because he loved her. he would take her to supper with Miss Shivers. He wouldn’t understand why she was so keen to go, but he would see that she was in earnest, and that would be enough...

“By the way, I checked the computer,” he told her in front of the destinations board on Paddington Station next Sunday. “We definitely didn’t send a card to anyone called Shivers.”

“Makes it all the more exciting, doesn’t it?” Fran said, squeezing his arm.

Jim was the first man she had trusted. Trust was her top requirement of the opposite sex. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t particularly tall and that his nose came to a point. He was loyal. And didn’t Clint Eastwood have a pointed nose?

She’d learned from her mother’s three disastrous marriages to be ultra-wary of men. The first—Fran’s father. Harry—had started the rot. He’d died in a train crash just a few days before Fran was born. You’d think he couldn’t be blamed for that, but he could. Fran’s mother had been admitted to hospital with complications in the eighth month, and Harry, the rat, had found someone else within a week. On the night of the crash he’d been in London with his mistress, buying her expensive clothes. He’d even lied to his pregnant wife, stuck in hospital, about working overtime.

For years Fran’s mother had fended off the questions any child asks about a father she has never seen, telling Fran to forget him and love her step father instead. Stepfather the First had turned into a violent alcoholic. The divorce had taken nine years to achieve. Stepfather the Second—a Finn called Bengt (Fran called him Bent)—had treated their Wimbledon terraced house as if it were a sauna, insisting on communal baths and parading naked around the place. When Fran was reaching puberty, there were terrible rows because she wanted privacy. Her mother had sided with Bengt until one terrible night when he’d crept into Fran’s bedroom and groped her. Bengt walked out of their lives the next day, but, incredibly to Fran, a lot of the blame seemed to be heaped on her, and her relationship with her mother had been damaged forever. At forty-three, her mother, deeply depressed, had taken a fatal overdose.

The hurts and horrors of those years had not disappeared, but marriage to Jim had provided a fresh start. Fran nestled against him in the carriage and he fingered a strand of her dark hair. It was supposed to be an Intercity train, but B. R. were using old rolling-stock for some of the Christmas period and Fran and Jim had this compartment to themselves.

“Did you let this Shivers woman know we’re coming?”

She nodded. “I phoned. She’s over the moon that I answered. She’s going to meet us at the station.”

“What’s it all about, then?”

“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t? Why not, for God’s sake?”

“It’s a mystery trip—a Christmas mystery. I’d rather keep it that way.”

“Sometimes, Fran, you leave me speechless.”

“Kiss me instead, then.”

A whistle blew somewhere and the line of taxis beside the platform appeared to be moving forward. Fran saw no more of the illusion because Jim had put his lips to hers.

Somewhere beyond Westbourne Park Station, they noticed how foggy the late afternoon had become. After days of mild, damp weather, a proper December chill had set in. The heating in the carriage was working only in fits and starts and Fran was beginning to wish she’d worn trousers instead of opting decorously for her corduroy skirt and boots.

“Do you think it’s warmer farther up the train?”

“Want me to look?”

Jim slid aside the door. Before starting along the corridor, he joked, “If I’m not back in half an hour, send for Miss Marple.”

“No need,” said Fran. “I’ll find you in the bar and mine’s a hot cuppa.”

She pressed herself into the warm space Jim had left in the corner and rubbed a spy-hole in the condensation. There wasn’t anything to spy. She shivered and wondered if she’d been right to trust her hunch and come on this trip. It was more than a hunch, she told herself. It was intuition.

It wasn’t long before she heard the door pulled back. She expected to see Jim. or perhaps the man who checked the tickets. Instead, there was a fellow about her own age. twenty-five, with a pink carrier bag containing something about the size of a box file. “Do you mind?” he asked. “The heating’s given up altogether next door.”

Fran gave a shrug. “I’ve got my doubts about the whole carriage.”

He took the corner seat by the door and placed the bag beside him. Fran took stock of him rapidly, hoping Jim would soon return. She didn’t feel threatened. but she wasn’t used to these old-fashioned compartments. She rarely used the trains these days except the tube occasionally.

She decided the young man must have kitted himself in an Oxfam shop. He had a dark-blue car coat, black trousers with flares, and crepe-soled ankle boots. Around his neck was one of those striped scarves that college students wore in the sixties, one end slung over his left shoulder. And his thick, dark hair matched the image. Fran guessed he was unemployed. She wondered if he was going to ask her for money.

But he said, “Been up to town for the day?”

“I live there.” She added quickly. “With my husband. He’ll be back presently.”

“I’m married, too.” he said, and there was a chink of amusement in his eyes that Fran found reassuring. “I’m up from the country, smelling the wellies and cowdung. Don’t care much for London. It’s crazy in Bond Street this time of year.”

“Bond Street?” repeated Fran. She hadn’t got him down as a big spender.

“This once.” he explained. “It’s special, this Christmas. We’re expecting our first, my wife and I.”

“Congratulations.”

He smiled. A self-conscious smile. “My wife. Pearlie—that’s my name for her—Pearlie made all her own maternity clothes, but she’s really looking forward to being slim again. She calls herself the frump with a lump. After the baby arrives. I want her to have something glamorous, really special. She deserves it. I’ve been putting money aside for months. Do you want to see what I got? I found it in Elaine Ducharme.”

“I don’t know it.”

“It’s a very posh shop. I found the advert in some fashion magazine.” He had already taken the box from the carrier and was unwrapping the pink ribbon.

“You’d better not. It’s gift-wrapped.”

“Tell me what you think,” he insisted, as he raised the lid, parted the tissue, and lifted out the gift for his wife. It was a nightdress, the sort of nightdress, Fran privately reflected, that men misguidedly buy for the women they adore. Pale-blue, in fine silk, styled in the empire line, gathered at the bodice, with masses of lace interwoven with yellow ribbons. Gorgeous to look at and hopelessly impractical to wash and use again. Not even comfortable to sleep in. His wife, she guessed, would wear it once and pack it away with her wedding veil and her love letters.

“It’s exquisite.”

“I’m glad I showed it to you.” He started to replace it clumsily in the box.

“Let me,” said Fran, leaning across to take it from him. The silk was irresistible. “I know she’ll love it.”

“It’s not so much the gift,” he said as if he sensed her thoughts. “It’s what lies behind it. Pearlie would tell you I’m useless at romantic speeches. You should have seen me blushing in that shop. Frilly knickers on every side. The girls there had a right game with me, holding these nighties against themselves and asking what I thought.”

Fran felt privileged. She doubted if Pearlie would ever be told of the gauntlet her young husband had run to acquire the nightdress. She warmed to him. He was fun in a way that Jim couldn’t be. Not that she felt disloyal to Jim, but this guy was devoted to his Pearlie, and that made him easy to relax with. She talked to him some more, telling him about the teaching and some of the sweet things the kids had said at the end of the term.

“They value you,” he said. “They should.”

She reddened and said, “It’s about time my husband came back.” Switching the conversation away from herself, she told the story of the mysterious invitation from Miss Shivers.

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “Believe me, you are.”

Suddenly uneasy for no reason she could name, Fran said, “I’d better look for my husband. He said I’d find him in the bar.”

“Take care, then.”

As she progressed along the corridor, rocked by the speeding train, she debated with herself whether to tell Jim about the young man. It would be difficult without risking upsetting him. Still, there was no cause really.

The next carriage was of the standard Intercity type. Teetering toward her along the center aisle was Jim, bearing two beakers of tea, fortunately capped with lids. He’d queued for ten minutes, he said. And he’d found two spare seats.

They claimed the places and sipped the tea. Fran decided to tell Jim what had happened. “While you were getting these,” she began—and then stopped, for the carriage was plunged into darkness.

Often on a long train journey, there are unexplained breaks in the power supply. Normally, Fran wouldn’t have been troubled. This time, she had a horrible sense of disaster, a vision of the carriage rearing up, thrusting her sideways. The sides seemed to buckle, shattered glass rained on her, and people were shrieking. Choking fumes. Searing pain in her legs. Dimly, she discerned a pair of legs to her right, dressed in dark trousers. Boots with crepe soles. And blood. A pool of blood.

“You’ve spilt tea all over your skirt!” Jim said.

The lights came on again, and the carriage was just as it had been. People were reading the evening paper as if nothing at all had occurred. But Fran had crushed the beaker in her hand—no wonder her legs had smarted.

The thickness of the corduroy skirt had prevented her from being badly scalded. She mopped it with a tissue. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me— I had a nightmare, except that I wasn’t asleep. Where are we?”

“We went through Reading twenty minutes ago. I’d say we’re almost there. Are you going to be okay?”

Over the public-address system came the announcement that the next station stop would be Didmarsh Halt.

So far as they could tell in the thick mist, they were the only people to leave the train at Didmarsh.

Miss Shivers was in the booking hall, a gaunt-faced, tense woman of about fifty, with cropped silver hair and red-framed glasses. Her hand was cold, but she shook Fran’s firmly and lingered before letting it go.

She drove them in an old Maxi Estate to a cottage set back from the road not more than five minutes from the station. Christmas-tree lights were visible through the leaded window. The smell of roast turkey wafted from the door when she opened it. Jim handed across the bottle of wine he had thoughtfully brought.

“We’re wondering how you heard of us.”

“Yes, I’m sure you are,” the woman answered, addressing herself more to Fran than Jim. “My name is Edith. I was your mother’s best friend for ten years, but we fell out over a misunderstanding. You see. Fran. I loved your father.”

Fran stiffened and turned to Jim. “I don’t think we should stay.”

“Please.” said the woman, and she sounded close to desperation, “we did nothing wrong. I have something on my conscience, but it isn’t adultery, whatever you were led to believe.”

They consented to stay and eat the meal. Conversation was strained, but the food was superb. And when at last they sat in front of the fire sipping coffee, Edith Shivers explained why she had invited them. “As I said, I loved your father Harry. A crush, we called it in those days when it wasn’t mutual. He was kind to me, took me out, kissed me sometimes, but that was all. He really loved your mother. Adored her.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Fran grimly.

“No, your mother was mistaken. Tragically mistaken. I know what she believed, and nothing I could say or do would shake her. I tried writing, phoning, calling personally. She shut me out of her life completely.”

“That much I can accept,” said Fran. “She never mentioned you to me.”

“Did she never talk about the train crash—the night your father was killed, just down the line from here?”

“Just once. After that it was a closed book. He betrayed her dreadfully. She was pregnant, expecting me. It was traumatic. She hardly ever mentioned my father after that. She didn’t even keep a photograph.”

Miss Shivers put out her hand and pressed it over Fran’s. “My dear, for both their sakes I want you to know the truth. Thirty-seven people died in that crash, twenty-five years ago this very evening. Your mother was shocked to learn that he was on the train, because he’d said nothing whatsoever to her about it. He’d told her he was working late. She read about the crash without supposing for a moment that Harry was one of the dead. When she was given the news, just a day or two before you were born, the grief was worse because he’d lied to her. Then she learned that I’d been a passenger on the same train, as indeed I had, and escaped unhurt. Fran, that was chance—pure chance. I happened to work in the City. My name was published in the press, and your mother saw it and came to a totally wrong conclusion.”

“That my father and you—”

“Yes. And that wasn’t all. Some days after the accident, Harry’s personal effects were returned to her. and in the pocket of his jacket they found a receipt from a Bond Street shop for a nightdress.”

“Elaine Ducharme,” said Fran in a flat voice.

“You know?”

“Yes.”

“The shop was very famous. They went out of business in 1969. You see—”

“He’d bought it for her,” said Fran, “as a surprise.”

Edith Shivers withdrew her hand from Fran’s and put it to her mouth. “Then you know about me?”

“No.”

Their hostess drew herself up in her chair. “I must tell you. Quite by chance on that night twenty-five years ago. I saw him getting on the train. I still loved him and he was alone, so I walked along the corridor and joined him. He was carrying a bag containing the nightdress. In the course of the journey he showed it to me, not realizing that it wounded me to see how much he loved her still. He told me how he’d gone into the shop—”

“Yes,” said Fran expressionlessly. “And after Reading, the train crashed.”

“He was killed instantly. The side of the carriage crushed him. But I was flung clear—bruised, cut in the forehead, but really unhurt. I could see that Harry was dead. Amazingly, the box with the nightdress wasn’t damaged.” Miss Shivers stared into the fire. “I coveted it. I told myself if I left it, someone would pick it up and steal it. Instead, I did. I stole it. And it’s been on my conscience ever since.”

Fran had listened in a trancelike way. thinking all the time about her meeting in the train.

Miss Shivers was saying, “If you hate me for what I did, I understand. You see. your mother assumed that Harry bought the nightdress for me. Whatever I said to the contrary, she wouldn’t have believed me.”

“Probably not,” said Fran. “What happened to it?”

Miss Shivers got up and crossed the room to a sideboard, opened a drawer, and withdrew a box—the box Fran had handled only an hour or two previously. “I never wore it. It was never meant for me. I want you to have it, Fran. He would have wished that.”

Fran’s hands trembled as she opened the box and laid aside the tissue. She stroked the silk. She thought of what had happened, how she hadn’t for a moment suspected that she had seen a ghost. She refused to think of him as that. She rejoiced in the miracle that she had met her own father, who had died before she was born—met him in the prime of his young life, when he was her own age.

Still holding the box. she got up and kissed Edith Shivers on the forehead. “My parents are at peace now. I’m sure of it. This is a wonderful Christmas present,” she said.