A Dedicated Man

TWO

With her head propped up on cushions, Sally lay in the back garden, sunbathing in her pale blue bikini. It was a luxury she felt entitled to as she had made temporary peace with her parents by breaking a date with Kevin the previous evening in order to visit boring Aunt Madge in Skipton. There, she had sipped tea from tiny fragile china cups with gilded rims and red roses painted on their sides, and had answered politely all the dull and predictable questions about her schoolwork. At least the television had been on – Aunt Madge never turned it off – so she had been able to half-watch an old Elizabeth Taylor film while pretending to pay attention to the conversation, which ranged from the shocking state of the neighbour’s garden to news of a distant cousin’s hysterectomy. The odd thing was that her parents hadn’t seemed to enjoy the evening much either; her father hardly said a word. They all seemed relieved when the goodbyes had been said and they could troop out to the car.

With a sigh, Sally put down Wuthering Heights and rolled over on to her stomach. Her skin was already glowing pleasantly, and even with the lotion she would have to be careful how long she spent outside.

She was puzzled and frustrated by the book. In the film – even the old black and white version with Laurence Olivier – Heathcliff had seemed so sexy and tragic. She remembered sharing tissues with her mother while they watched it on television and her father had laughed at them. But the book was different; not the story – that was basically the same – but the character of Heathcliff. True, he loved Catherine passionately, but in the book he was so much more cruel and violent. He seemed to want to destroy everyone around him. And worse, he was even more interested in getting his hands on the house and property. That was the real reason he married Isabella – though he did appear to be taking revenge for Edgar marrying Catherine – and an obsession with acquiring property was hardly romantic. He acted more like a demented (and much more handsome) Teddy Hackett than a true heroic figure.

She reached for her glass of Perrier. It was warm; the ice had all melted and the sparkle had vanished. Pulling a face, she rolled on to her back again and started thinking rather despondently about her sleuthing. There wasn’t much to think about. She had no idea who the police suspected, what clues they had, what they knew about motives and opportunities. All she had to go on was what anyone in the village would know about Steadman: that he seemed fond of Penny Cartwright, much to her father’s chagrin; that he worked a lot with Michael Ramsden; that he had been able to help the Ramsden family by buying the house when the father died; that he was generally well liked; that he drank in the Bridge with Jack Barker, Teddy Hackett and Dr Barnes. He just didn’t seem the type to go around inflaming people’s passions, like Heathcliff. But he must have done; somebody had killed him.

It had to be a man. Of that, Sally was sure. Steadman had been quite tall and must have weighed a bit; no woman could have manoeuvred his body over the wall and all that way up the field. But that still left too many suspects. If only she had had the foresight to watch from the shelter that night. Sally began to apply her imagination to the facts. Everyone knew that Michael Ramsden had once courted Penny Cartwright. What if he was still carrying a torch for her, like Heathcliff for Catherine, and was jealous of Steadman’s attentions? But she remembered seeing Ramsden – and avoiding him – that evening she went drinking in Leeds with Kevin. He had been with a good-looking woman, and though Sally had only got a fleeting glance while pulling Kevin quickly back out through the door before they were seen, she knew it wasn’t Penny. And he’d hardly be going out with someone else if he was still in love with her.

There was Jack Barker. At first she hadn’t suspected him, but now she could see him acting in the heat of passion. She’d noticed how often he’d been out walking with Penny around the village lately and wondered if Barker might have seen Steadman as an obstacle. He wrote detective stories, after all, so he must know all about murder. Even though he was a gentleman, he would hardly stand there with the gun smoking in his hand and wait for the police to come. Surely he would try and get rid of the body so he could remain free and win Penny’s love. She wondered if he had an alibi and if there was any way of finding out.

And then there was Hackett. No love interest there, of course, but she’d heard rumours of arguments over property. People certainly seemed to get all steamed up about such things in Wuthering Heights.

She reached out for her suntan lotion. One more coat, another hour or so, then she’d go in. As far as catching the murderer was concerned, all she could do was try to remember all she’d seen and heard in the village since the Steadmans came to Gratly eighteen months ago. Maybe there was something she’d overlooked: a word or gesture that had meant nothing or made no sense at the time but took on more significance in the light of the murder. She had a good visual memory – it probably came from watching so many films – so she could review facial expressions and body language. Maybe something would click if she worked at it.

The oil felt good as she massaged it slowly into her stomach and thighs, and she wished Kevin’s hands were rubbing it on her flushed skin. A bee droned around the neck of the open bottle, then floated away. Sally picked up her book again, leaving oily fingerprints on the pages.