Down Among the Dead Men

32

Georgina wasn’t on the trip. If Diamond had learned anything in recent days, it was the wisdom of keeping two strong women apart. Almost certainly she would have vetoed more trespassing at Holly Blue Cottage.

Hen drove while Diamond talked, making sure he kept off the topic of the bodies under the sea. Small talk didn’t come naturally to him. He treated her to his opinions on films of the nineteen-forties, notably Odd Man Out and The Wicked Lady, and for some reason she was amused. She was still chuckling when she stopped the car in front of the cottage.

He got out beside the nameboard. ‘Daft name — Holly Blue. The only holly I’ve ever seen is green, with red berries.’

‘Shows your ignorance, city slicker,’ Hen said. ‘It’s a butterfly. Look at the picture underneath.’

‘But why give a butterfly a name that makes no sense?’

‘It’s blue — a gorgeous silver blue, much more delicate than the picture.’

‘I get that part.’

‘And it feeds on holly leaves. Satisfied?’

‘How the heck do you know about the holly leaves?’

‘Are you questioning my countryside cred? I’m a Sussex woman. I get about, go for walks, notice things and look them up when I get home. Townies like you spend all your time indoors watching old films. You wouldn’t know a holly blue from a silver-spotted skipper.’

‘The clouded yellow,’ he said, ‘I know that.’

‘Cripes! There’s hope yet.’

‘Jean Simmons and Trevor Howard, 1951.’

‘God help us, not another old film.’

The cottage looked every bit as derelict as when they’d seen it last. They decided to try the back door. Hen stepped out confidently without any pretence of subterfuge. Diamond, a couple of paces behind, could only admire this forthright little woman, the set of her shoulders and the head held high. This was the DCI Mallin he knew, on the case and primed for action.

She stopped. ‘Did you hear something?’

‘My phone?’ His hand went to his pocket. It was high time Dave Albison called. But nothing had come through.

‘Voices,’ Hen said.

He shook his head.

‘I’m not making this up.’

‘Inside the cottage?’

‘No, in the open. From next door, I expect.’

They waited a few seconds. Whatever Hen had heard wasn’t repeated, so they pressed on, tangling with spiders’ webs, brambles and overgrown shrubs to get to the back door.

‘This was the window I looked through,’ she said.

He put his face close to the dusty glass. ‘I don’t know how you saw anything.’

‘Outlined in the doorway.’

‘The door’s closed.’

‘Get away. It wasn’t when I was last here.’ She peered in, shading her eyes with her hand. ‘Well, there’s a thing. Someone was inside, or I’ve gone squiffy.’

He approached the back door. ‘Let’s see if we can get in.’

‘Notice the catflap,’ Hen said. ‘I didn’t imagine that.’

‘I can’t squeeze through there. You might manage.’ He tried the handle, but the door was locked. It was a simple, old-fashioned mortise lock set into the wood. He bent to look through the keyhole.

‘Wouldn’t you know it?’ He stepped back and felt in his pocket. ‘There’s a way of picking a lock like this.’

‘Tell me about it, Houdini. I don’t think the credit card trick is going to work. All you’ll do is damage your card.’

‘Do you have a nail file?’

‘Do I look like a woman who carries a nail file?’

‘I may have to use brute force.’

‘Before you do,’ she said, ‘look under the doormat.’

After giving her the look that said even in rural Sussex keys under doormats were a thing of the past, he stooped to lift a corner of the filthy old coconut mat. Underneath were a few dead earthworms and a large family of woodlice. He lifted the whole mat. More wildlife. No key. He dropped the mat, making his feelings clear.

‘Try the ledge above the door.’

Swearing under his breath, he felt with his fingertips and touched something that moved, fell and hit the mat.

A rusty key.

‘How did you know?’

‘Old cottage, old custom.’

He used the key and it worked. ‘Hen, I owe you a beer.’

‘Make that Sussex Pride.’

They stepped inside the kitchen and saw at once that it had been in use not long ago. A bowl of fresh cat food was on the floor to the right. The sink was damp and there was a mug with the dregs of some coffee. Diamond found the fridge and opened it. The interior light came on.

‘They have a power supply.’

They also had eggs, butter, milk, yoghurt, an opened tin of apricots and some grapefruit.

He said, ‘I’m starting to feel like Goldilocks.’

She eyed his scant hair and said, ‘No comment.’

He crossed the room and stepped through a door.

It’s strange how violence announces itself. For a split second he sensed imminent danger. He ducked, but couldn’t stop something heavy and hard impacting with his head. A starburst was followed by oblivion.

Somebody was speaking his name. He tried to respond and couldn’t. His voice wasn’t working.

He felt the chill of water splash his face. He shook his head and opened his eyes. Focusing was difficult. A shape materialised and sharpened. A face close to his.

‘Get a grip for God’s sake, Goldilocks.’

Only one person ever spoke to him like that.

He managed to whisper to Hen, ‘What happened?’

‘You got taken out with a frying pan.’

It took an effort to work out that he was lying on the floor. A cushion had been placed under his head. It felt like a cement block. He tried to move.

‘Keep still,’ Hen said. ‘Don’t force it.’

‘Who...?’

‘Can’t tell you. They’re not here any longer. Belted out through the front. I didn’t get much of a look. He must have been poised right here with the frying pan. Can’t really blame him. We’re intruders.’

‘You didn’t give chase?’

‘Seeing to you was more urgent.’

‘Am I bleeding?’

‘You’ll have a bump the size of a plum.’

‘How long was I out?’

‘More than the official count. It was one hell of a crack. Do you want a drink now? I can prop you up a bit.’

‘I’d rather get after him.’

‘You’re in no shape.’

‘Never was.’ He propped himself up on one elbow. The head was sore, but clearing. ‘I’ll be all right. I took harder knocks in my rugby-playing days.’

‘Not with a three-pound frying pan you didn’t. Feel the weight of that.’ She held out the offensive weapon, black and solid-looking.

‘I’ll take your word for it.’ He sat up fully. ‘Let’s at least take a look outside. He can’t be far off.’ He braced his legs, grabbed the doorpost and hauled himself up. Briefly he thought his balance was going, and then he stood firm.

‘Crazy guy,’ Hen said. ‘You’re not ready.’

The fresh air helped his head. In the hayfield that had once been a garden, they looked for signs of disturbance. The beaten paths to the front gate, the garden hut and the door in the wall were the obvious routes his attacker might have taken.

‘Stay here while I check the back. Give a yell if you see him,’ Hen said. She was in charge and he was in no shape to argue.

The front gate wasn’t far off, and he didn’t feel quite so bad, so he stepped out on those shaky legs to get a better view. Hen’s car stood in the lane. No other vehicle had been in sight when they arrived, making it unlikely anyone had escaped on wheels. He managed a few more steps, looking to both sides. There weren’t many places for his attacker to hide.

As he was turning to go back he thought he heard a sound like someone clearing their throat.

He stopped to listen. It may have come from the woods fringing the road. Possibly a deer or a fox. Hen, the countrywoman, would know one animal sound from another. She’d laugh if he’d been taken in.

He started to move on, then felt unsteady, so he stopped by the car and leaned his back against it, thinking Hen had been right. He should have waited longer before trying to move.

He felt in his pocket for the phone. Albison still hadn’t called. Had the thing been damaged when he fell? He checked and it seemed to be functioning normally. No calls had been received.

Then a disembodied voice said, ‘Are you all right?’

He turned.

A woman stood up on the other side of the Fiat. She must have been crouching out of sight behind it. Middle-aged, with owlish round glasses and her dark hair in a coiled plait, she was in a jumper and skirt — unsuitable for outdoors on a cool autumn afternoon — so he had to assume she was the squatter.

‘Was it you in there?’ he asked.

She clutched both hands to her chest. ‘I’m so sorry. You frightened me, coming into the cottage suddenly like that.’

He returned the phone to his pocket, trying to decide how he should deal with this.

‘You’re terribly pale,’ she said. ‘You ought to lie down.’

As if he wasn’t confused enough, his attacker was troubled about the state of his health. ‘What were you doing in there?’

‘I’m living there. Who are you?’

The question he’d been on the point of asking her. Saying he was from the police would surely panic her. He didn’t trust his legs to go in pursuit. ‘You don’t know me. My name’s Peter.’

‘Did Tom send you?’

So she knew young Standforth. And well enough to call him by his first name.

She expected an answer, so he gave one. ‘Not exactly, but I know him. Shall we talk in the cottage?’

‘I don’t wish to talk.’

He took a small step to his left, meaning to move around the car, and she took a step of her own the other way. They were like a pair of kids playing chase — a game he certainly couldn’t win.

Keep her talking, he told himself. Hen will be back shortly. ‘You’re living in a cottage that doesn’t belong to you.’

‘Is that any business of yours?’

She had to be told. ‘It is — because I’m a police officer.’ He turned his head and yelled, ‘Hen, we’re over here, by the car.’

Instead of running off, she put her hands to her face and sobbed, shaking convulsively.

When Hen appeared round the side of the cottage, he was already steering the distressed woman towards the open door.

‘Christ, Peter, did you give her a clout?’

‘I told her we’re police, that’s all.’

She took the woman’s hand and helped her inside. ‘It’s all right, my love. He’s not going to do you for cracking him over the head. He’d be a laughing stock. I’ve often felt like clonking him and you’ve beaten me to it. Let’s all have a friendly chat in the front room.’

‘Friendly’ would have been overstating it and the chat had to wait some minutes, but Hen dusted off three chairs and brewed some tea and the woman dried her eyes.

The homely touch was working.

‘He’s Peter and I’m Hen and we’re not here to evict you or anything. What shall we call you?’

She hesitated before saying, ‘I’m Constance.’

‘Then I know who you are,’ Diamond told her. ‘You’re the missing schoolteacher — Miss Constance Gibbon.’

She blinked twice and said nothing.

‘So do we call you Connie?’ Hen asked as she filled the three mugs.

‘No one calls me that,’ Miss Gibbon said with disdain.

Connie or Constance, it didn’t bother Diamond. He’d worked out her identity. And he felt more comfortable seated. ‘So this is a sort of grace and favour home for you, is it?’

‘I wouldn’t call it that,’ she said. ‘It’s more of a refuge. I’m not ungrateful, but that’s what it is.’

‘You didn’t want anyone to know you’re here?’

‘That was the intention. I’ve been in a dreadful state of mind for weeks, close to a breakdown. I needed privacy, a place to shut everything out and Tom kindly suggested here.’

‘So you leave the mail on the mat to make it look as if it’s still empty?’

‘Nobody except Tom knew until you came along.’

‘Something must have gone badly wrong for you.’

‘That’s an understatement. I was lured into a situation that was dishonest and impossible to cope with. I was so cruelly treated that I almost lost my sanity.’

Almost lost it? Diamond was asking himself if she’d already gone beyond. ‘What happened?’

She closed her eyes for some seconds as if the memory was too painful to recall. Finally, she spoke in an expressionless voice. ‘It goes back three years, to a time when I was unemployed. I’m a trained teacher, but there weren’t any jobs where I was, in Fulham. I lived alone in a bedsit. It was so depressing. I was in debt, but I just had to get out sometimes and go for a drink. When I say “a drink” I mean exactly that, a single glass of red wine. I’d visit a gay and lesbian bar in Soho — that’s the way I am, in case you hadn’t realised.’

Diamond wasn’t in realising mode. He had given no more thought to Miss Gibbon’s sexuality than to her size in shoes.

‘One Saturday evening,’ she went on, ‘I met this woman called Olivia who unexpectedly took an interest in me. She was strong and attractive and I thought she was out of my league. She was dressed in the latest clothes and wearing jewellery that was clearly the real thing. She didn’t seem to mind that I couldn’t pay for drinks. She took me to a club I’d never heard of and we danced and had more drinks and spent the night together. She paid for everything. In the morning I thanked her, thinking that would be the end of it, but to my astonishment she said she’d like to do the same thing the following weekend. I told her I felt uncomfortable not paying my share, but she brushed that aside.’

‘Had you told her your situation?’ Hen asked.

‘Oh, yes. But she didn’t say much about her own, simply that she had a well-paid job and money to burn. She charmed me. I had more compliments from Olivia the first two evenings we were together than I’ve had in the whole of my life. I was flattered. Who wouldn’t be? I’m not promiscuous. I’ve been with two other women — brief affairs — and I’m almost forty now.’

‘How old was Olivia?’

‘Forty-seven. She didn’t say, but I found out later. To be fair, she looked marvellous. She went to beauticians and the best hairdressers and of course her clothes were superb. My worry was that I was so drab beside her. I had one black dress, basically, for nights out, and the only changes were scarves and shawls I bought from a trader in the North End Road market. Olivia didn’t complain. That second weekend she gave me a present, beautifully wrapped in a giftbox, and it was... clothes.’

‘Intimate clothes?’ Hen said.

Miss Gibbon turned sunset red.

Diamond stared into his tea.

‘They were exquisite. Our Saturday meetings in the West End went on through the spring. Blissful, but soon both of us were finding it a strain meeting only at weekends. We wanted to be together all the time. Then Olivia asked me to move in with her. She said she had plans for me. I felt I knew her so well by then that whatever she was thinking of could only be something wonderful.’

‘A civil partnership?’

‘It crossed my mind, but I didn’t like to ask. She made the decisions in our relationship and I wanted it to stay that way. It’s my nature.’

‘Did you take her up on the offer?’ Diamond asked.

‘I did. I moved in at the end of the week. She had a large house in Bosham overlooking the harbour.’

‘Down here?’

‘It’s a lovely spot.’

‘I know it well,’ Hen said. ‘Bit different from the gay scene in London.’

‘Different from a Fulham bedsit, too,’ Constance Gibbon said. ‘I loved it as soon as I saw it. She made me very welcome. The house is palatial inside, Scandinavian in style and beautifully furnished.’

‘Did you discover where her money came from?’

‘She said it was from a legacy, but I found out later it wasn’t. Anyway, I had no intention of being a kept woman, so I thought I’d look for a teaching position in a local school, in the hope that there were some openings here in Sussex. I went online and started actively searching, wanting to surprise Olivia by announcing that I’d joined the employed once again. It was midsummer and the schools were recruiting for the new session.’

‘Were jobs more plentiful here than in Fulham?’

‘Not really. The government is always saying there’s a shortage of maths teachers, but when it comes to finding a school that wants one, it’s a different story.’

‘Maths?’ Diamond said. ‘But you teach art.’

She sighed and shook her head. ‘That’s where I went wrong. I was persuaded to teach art, but no, all my experience is in maths. Where was I? I’m telling this in the wrong order. Olivia caught me leafing through the Times Educational Supplement one morning and asked what I was up to, so I had to tell her I’d put several applications in, but hadn’t been shortlisted. She gave me a hug and said she had been secretive, too, but now she was compelled to tell me the plan she’d mentioned before I moved in. To my utter amazement she told me she was the head of a private school for girls in Chichester.’

Diamond jerked forward, almost spilling the tea. ‘Which school?’

‘Priory Park.’

‘Miss Du Barry? You and Miss Du Barry are lovers?’

‘Do you know her?’

‘I’ve been to the school and met her. I didn’t have an inkling of this. Didn’t suspect it for a moment.’

‘She’s brilliant at keeping things to herself,’ she said. ‘In London when we talked about my difficulties finding a teaching post, she never once mentioned that she was a school head, so when she came out with this I was dumbfounded. Nothing I knew about her seemed to suggest she was in the same profession as me, but it was true. She kept her personal and professional lives completely apart. Her plan, she said, was to offer me a teaching position to start in September. There was a vacancy on the staff and how would I feel about teaching art?’

‘What did you say?’

‘I was speechless. I knew almost nothing about the subject, but Olivia seemed to believe it was not only possible, but a breeze, to use her word. She said when an opportunity came she would find me a post teaching maths. Art was the one subject any experienced teacher could cope with because it’s so individual. Each student has to develop her own creativity. The teacher is there mainly to encourage and inspire, not to work through a curriculum as you do in most other subjects. I could take them round galleries or look at images on the internet and teach them about the theory of composition, which is closely related to maths.’

‘The golden mean,’ Diamond said with all the authority of a man who had lasted one hour in a life class.

‘Exactly. She showed me a syllabus and persuaded me I could handle it. In short, I agreed to take it on — the worst professional decision I ever made. You can’t bluff your way through, you really can’t.’

‘Did the other teachers know you were living with the head?’ Hen asked.

‘Absolutely not. Olivia didn’t want anyone to find out, so we travelled to school separately. She drove in and I took the bus. It’s only a short ride. I was introduced as a new member of staff from London and no one questioned me. I’m quite a private person anyway and others seem to respect that.’

‘Facing a class must have been an ordeal.’

‘Any teacher fills in for absent colleagues from time to time, so it wasn’t terrifying. I tried my best. I believed, and still do, that one can analyse the structure of a picture in geometrical terms, but it failed to excite the students. The ones who choose art are more interested in flouting the rules rather than observing them. I was trying to constrain them while they wanted to take risks and break out.’

‘Did you have trouble keeping discipline?’ Hen asked.

She shook her head. ‘It’s not that sort of school. There were a few mischief-makers, but there always are. I can handle them. My difficulty was that I had no confidence in myself as a teacher of the subject. In desperation I decided to join a recreational art group to experience practical art.’

‘Tom’s group?’

‘Yes, I made enquiries and heard that they were the best. The Saturday mornings fitted in nicely with my teaching. So I came to Fortiman House. The standard was depressingly high. They’re professional artists, some of them, and I was just a beginner, but several gave me tips. Tom was particularly generous with his advice.’

‘Did Miss Du Barry know what you were up to?’

‘I had no reason to be secretive. She thought it sensible. I didn’t have transport, so she gave me a lift in and left me at the gate. Later, one of the others who also lived in Bosham — a nice woman called Drusilla — took over the ferrying.’

‘I’ve met Drusilla,’ Diamond said. ‘I did a session with the artists myself.’

Hen gave him a disbelieving frown and then turned back to Miss Gibbon. ‘Did it help you at the school?’

‘Helped my confidence, a bit. I was hanging on, hoping a position would arise in the maths department. Two whole years went by. I kept saying to Olivia that I felt a fraud, but she insisted I was a success and they’d get through their exams. Most of them did in the first year, but no thanks to me. It was down to their own talent.’

‘What went wrong, then?’

She lowered her eyes. ‘Our relationship. A silly, embarrassing thing was blown up out of all proportion. She asked me to get a tattoo. I’m not a tattoo person. I don’t care for them.’

‘What kind of tattoo?’ Hen asked.

‘Her name between a red rose and a heart.’

‘Olivia?’

‘All of it — Olivia Du Barry.’

‘The full moniker. Where was it to go?’

Miss Gibbon blushed deeply again. ‘My lower back. She said once it was done I would never see it unless I used a mirror. She made an issue of it. She told me if I was unwilling to have her name tattooed on my flesh it must be because I didn’t intend to stay with her. It wasn’t that. And it wasn’t the pain of having it done. What upset me was that it was like being branded, being marked as her possession. She said if I couldn’t do that simple thing to please her, I was selfish. She kept on about it.’

‘Did she offer to have your name tattooed on her own butt?’

‘It was never suggested.’

‘Does she have tattoos?’

‘No. And what’s more, she won’t allow any of the Priory Park students to have them. One girl came in with a tiny heart design on her face and was asked to leave.’

‘Double standards.’

‘That’s what I thought, but I didn’t say so.’

‘You were right to stand firm,’ Hen said. ‘You didn’t get the tattoo, I hope?’

‘I almost did, just to end the friction between us. In fact, I got to the point of enquiring about tattooists in Chichester. Our relationship was under such a strain that I thought about getting the wretched thing done in secret and’ — she gave an embarrassed cough — ‘letting Olivia find it. The sense of relief would have been wonderful. One Saturday on the way home in the car I asked Drusilla — who seems to know everything — if there was a reliable tattoo artist she knew. For some reason this amused her and she asked what I was planning and it was a critical moment. I needed desperately to confide in someone other than Olivia, so I told Drusilla all about my relationship and my reluctance to get the tattooing done. To my surprise, she pulled the car over and stopped at the side of the road and said I’d be mad to go through with it. She’d known Olivia when she was at school and her name wasn’t Du Barry. It was Dewberry. She was plain Olive Dewberry then.’

Diamond could scarcely hold back the laughter. Olive Dewberry — he loved it. But he couldn’t risk upsetting this solemn woman at the climax of her story. Miss Gibbon hadn’t paused. She was very wound up.

‘She’d started calling herself Olivia Du Barry after she won the big prize on the national lottery. That was where her wealth came from. I’d been led to think it was inherited and the Du Barrys were an old Sussex family. I’d been completely taken in and she wanted me permanently labelled with this false name — as if it confirmed her status.’

‘Did you take it up with her?’ Hen said.

‘Certainly I did. I was more angry than I can say. The hypocrisy didn’t seem to register with her. She didn’t deny any of it. She called me vile names I can’t repeat and turned the whole thing round and accused me of latching on to her because she had money and position. It was deeply wounding. She told me to leave at once, and I said I had no intention of staying. I gathered my things, only the things I’d bought myself. I left behind all the clothes and presents she’d given me. I filled the one suitcase I’d arrived with and walked out without saying goodbye.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘I took the bus to Chichester. I thought of returning to London, but I had nowhere to stay. At times like this you need the help of friends. I thought about trying to contact Drusilla, but it was awkward. She’d been shocked to learn that I was lesbian. You don’t need antennae to tell you when somebody disapproves. I’m not sure how she would have reacted if I’d asked her to let me stay with her. Instead I thought of the one person who had shown me kindness throughout — Tom Standforth. I got on the phone and blurted out to Tom that I was homeless and could he possibly put me up for the night at Fortiman House. He didn’t hesitate. He came to collect me from the bus station. He must have seen my pitiful state at once because he said I was to stay there as long as I wished. I spent the first night in a spare room in the main house and the next day he showed me this cottage and said his father owned it and asked if I’d like to live here while I got myself together again. It’s ideal for me. I just wanted some time out from the world. He brought over fresh bedding and food and cleaned the main rooms and he’s made sure I’ve lacked for nothing ever since. I can’t speak of him too highly.’

‘You wanted nobody else to know where you were?’ Hen said.

‘It was a breakdown, or whatever they call it these days — post-traumatic stress. My emotions had been shattered. Even speech was difficult for me. I needed time to shut out the world and rest up. I stayed indoors for weeks. Only in the past few days have I ventured outside for a walk around the lake.’

‘In a beanie hat,’ Diamond said.

‘You saw me?’

‘A long way off.’

‘I’m much better than I was. If you thought I was living here illegally, I promise you I’m not. Tom will vouch for that. He’s visited me every day and got shopping in for me.’

‘Seen anyone else?’ Diamond asked. He slipped the question in casually, as if it had just occurred to him, but the answer mattered hugely.

‘How would I? It’s private here.’

‘I was thinking of one of the Priory Park students who may have come here looking for you on the night the artists had their party.’

‘Looking for me?’ Her face was a study in disbelief.

Diamond nodded, willing her, almost begging her, to break through the black cloud of uncertainty that hung over them.

‘Who on earth are you talking about?’

‘Mel.’

‘Melanie Mason, the quiet one?’ She widened her eyes. ‘What would she want from me?’

‘You may not know it, but Mel was troubled that you’d left the school so suddenly, and when she discovered you’re officially a missing person she decided to try and find you. She learned that you’d been one of the Fortiman House art group and there’s reason to believe she came here that evening in search of more information. She didn’t return home and she hasn’t been seen since.’

She clutched at her hair. ‘That’s dreadful. I can’t believe what you’re saying.’

‘Believe me, it’s true. She came to the police station to see what was being done to find you. I spoke to her myself. Are you certain she didn’t come here?’

‘How would she know I was staying in the cottage? I heard nothing. No, that isn’t correct. The sounds from the party carried a long way. I could hear the beat of the music on this side of the wall. And some time after midnight they let off some fireworks. Several loud bangs woke me up. I hate sudden noise.’

‘Fireworks?’ Diamond exchanged a shocked glance with Hen. ‘We weren’t told they had fireworks. The party was over before midnight.’

Hen asked her, ‘Could it have been shooting you heard? Did it go on for long?’

‘No, it was soon over. Two or three loud bangs.’

‘Gunfire must be a possibility.’

‘Oh, don’t say that. This is deeply disturbing — and so much more so if Melanie came here looking for me. Please God nothing dreadful has happened.’