Scold's Bridle

*5*

Paul Duggan switched off the television set and spoke ito the silence. "The video recording, of course, has no legal standing which is why I referred to Mrs. Gillespie's last written will and testament." He reached into his briefcase and produced some sheaves of paper. "These are photocopies only but the original is available for inspection at my office in Hills Street." He handed a copy to each of the women. "Mrs. Gillespie felt you might try to contest this document, Mrs. Lascelles. I can only advise you to consult a solicitor before you do so. As far as Dr. Blakeney is concerned"-he turned to Sarah-"Mr. Hapgood and I will need to discuss details with you as soon as possible. We can offer you three mornings next week. Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. In my office for preference, although we will come to Long Upton if necessary. You understand, however, that executors are entitled to charge for expenses." He beamed encouragingly at Sarah, waiting for an answer. He appeared to be completely unaware of the brewing hostility in the room.

Sarah gathered her scattered wits together. "Do I have any say in this at all?"

"In what, Dr. Blakeney?"

"In the will."

"You mean, are you free to reject Mrs. Gillespie's bequest?"

"Yes."

"There's an alternative provision which you will find on the last page of the document." Joanna and Ruth rustled through their copies. "If for any reason you are unable to take up the bequest, Mrs. Gillespie instructed us to sell her entire estate and donate the proceeds to the Seton Retirement Home for donkeys. She said, if you couldn't or wouldn't have her money, then it might as well go to deserving asses." He was watching Sarah closely and she thought that, after all, he wasn't quite so complacent as he seemed. He was expecting that remark to strike a chord. "Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, Dr. Blakeney? I should point out that an early meeting is essential. There is the future of Mrs. Lascelles and her daughter to be considered, for example. Mrs. Gillespie recognized that they would be in residence at Cedar House when the will was read and had no wish that we as executors should demand their immediate vacation of the property. It was for this reason, and without any offence intended," he smiled amiably at the two women, "that a full inventory of the contents was made. I'm sure the last thing any of us wants is a battle royal over just what was in the house at the time of Mrs. Gillespie's death."

"Oh, bloody fabulous," said Ruth scathingly, "now you're accusing us of theft."

"Not at all, Miss Lascelles. It's standard procedure, I assure you."

Her lip curled unattractively. "What's our future got to do with anything, anyway? I thought we'd ceased to exist." She dropped her cigarette butt deliberately on to the Persian carpet and ground it out under her heel.

"As I understand it, Miss Lascelles, you have another two terms at boarding school before you take your A levels. To date, your grandmother paid your fees but there is no provision in the will for further expenditure on your education so, in the circumstances, whether you remain at Southcliffe may well depend on Dr. Blakeney."

Joanna raised her head. "Or on me," she said coolly. "I am her mother, after all."

There was a short silence before Ruth gave a harsh laugh. "God, you're a fool. No wonder Granny didn't want to leave her money to you. What are you planning to pay with, Mother dear? No one's going to give you an allowance any more, you know, and you don't imagine your sweet little flower arrangements are going to produce four thousand a term, do you?"

Joanna smiled faintly. "If I contest this will then, presumably, things will continue as normal in the meantime." She looked enquiringly at Paul Duggan. "Do you have the authority to give the money to Dr. Blakeney if I too, am laying claim to it?"

"No," he admitted, "but, by the same token, you will receive nothing either. You are putting me in a difficult position, Mrs. Lascelles. I was your mother's lawyer, not yours. All I will say is there are time limits involved and I urge you to seek independent legal advice without delay. Things will not, as you put it, continue as normal."

"So in the short term Ruth and I lose either way?"

"Not necessarily."

She frowned. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

Ruth flung herself out of the sofa and stormed across to the window. "God, why do you have to be so obtuse? If you behave nicely, Mother, Dr. Blakeney may feel guilty enough about inheriting a fortune to keep subsidizing us. That's it, isn't it?" She glared at Duggan. "Granny's passed the buck of trying to create something decent out of the Cavendishes to her doctor." Her mouth twisted. "What a frigging awful joke! She warned me about it, too. Talk to Dr. Blakeney. She'll know what to do for the best. It's so unfair." She stamped her foot. "It's so bloody unfair."

Joanna's face was thoughtful. "Is that right, Mr. Duggan?"

"Not strictly, no. I will admit that Mrs. Gillespie's reading of Dr. Blakeney's character was that she would honour some of the undertakings Mrs. Gillespie made to you and your daughter, but I must stress that Dr. Blakeney is not obliged to do so. There is nothing in the will to that effect. She is free to interpret your mother's wishes any way she chooses, and if she believes that she can promote something worthwhile in Mrs. Gillespie's memory by ignoring you and building a clinic in this village instead, then she is entitled to do so."

There was another silence. Sarah looked up from a prolonged study of the carpet to discover all their eyes upon her. She found herself echoing Ruth's words. What a frigging awful joke. "Thursday," she said with a sigh. "I'll come to your office on Thursday and I shall probably bring my own solicitor with me. I'm not happy about this, Mr. Duggan."

"Poor Dr. Blakeney," said Joanna with a tight smile. "I do believe you're finally beginning to realize what a ruthless bitch my mother was. From the moment she seduced Gerald, she had her hands on the Cavendish purse strings and she kept them there, through threats and blackmail, upwards of fifty years." A look of compassion crossed her curiously impassive face. "And now she's appointed you to carry on her tyranny. The dictator is dead." She gave a small, ironic bow. "Long live the dictator."

Sarah stood by Paul Duggan's car as he packed the video recorder into the boot. "Have the police seen that film?" she asked him as he straightened up.

"Not yet. I've an appointment with a Sergeant Cooper in half an hour or so. I'll give him a copy then."

"Shouldn't you have shown it to them straight away? Mathilda didn't sound to me like a woman who was about to commit suicide. I must have died without changing my mind ... She wouldn't have said that if she was planning to kill herself two days later."

"I agree."

His moon face beamed at her and she frowned her irritation. "You're very relaxed about it," she said tartly. "I hope, for your sake, DS Cooper understands why you've delayed producing it. I certainly don't. Mathilda's been dead two weeks and the police have been tying themselves in knots trying to find evidence of murder."

"Not my fault, Dr. Blakeney," he said amiably. "It's been with the film company who made it for the last two weeks, waiting to have titles and music added. Mrs. Gillespie wanted Verdi playing in the background." He chuckled. "She chose Dies Irae-The Day of Wrath. Rather appropriate, don't you think?" He paused briefly, waiting for a reaction, but she was in no mood to oblige. "Anyway, she wanted to view it afterwards and they told her to come back in a month for a viewing. These things can't be hurried, I gather. They were very out to hear from me that she was already dead. All of which lends weight to your argument, that she wasn't planning to kill herself." He shrugged. "I wasn't there when she made it, so I didn't know what was in it. As far as I was concerned it was a message to her family. I saw it for the first time last night, at which point I rang for an appointment with the boys in blue." He glanced at his watch. "And I'm going to be late. I'll see you on Thursday, then."

Sarah watched him drive away with a horrible feeling of insecurity chewing at the pit of her stomach. She should have guessed, prepared herself a little. Talk to Dr. Blakeney. She will know what to do for the best. And what about Jack? Had he known?

She felt suddenly very lonely.

Sarah was raking up leaves when DS Cooper arrived that afternoon. He picked his way across the grass and stood watching her. "Hard work," he murmured sympathetically.

"Yes." She propped the rake against a tree and thrust her hands into her Barbour pockets. "We'd better go in. It's warmer inside."

"Don't worry on my account," he said. "I'd just as soon stay out and have a smoke." He fished a crumpled pack of Silk Cut from inside his coat and lit up with obvious enjoyment. "Disgusting habit," he murmured, eyeing her warily. "I'll give it up one day."

Sarah lifted an amused eyebrow. "Why are smokers always so consumed with guilt?"

"Cigarettes reveal the weakness of our character," he said morosely. "Other people give up, but we can't. To tell you the truth I've never understood why society treats us like pariahs. I've yet to meet the smoker who's beaten his wife after one too many fags or killed a child while in charge of a car, but I could show you a hundred drunks who've done it. I'd say drink is a far more dangerous drug than nicotine."

She led him to a bench seat beside the path. "The moral majority will get round to condemning the drinkers, too, eventually," she said. "And then the whole world will be jogging around in its vest and pants, bristling with good health, eating vegetables, drinking carrot juice and never doing anything remotely detrimental to its health."

He chuckled. "Shouldn't you applaud that, as a doctor?"

"I'll be out of a job." She leant her head against the back of the seat. "Anyway, I have a problem with the moral majority. I don't like it. I'd rather have free-thinking individuals any day than politically correct mobs who behave the way they're told to because somebody else has decided what's socially acceptable."

"Is that why you liked Mrs. Gillespie?"

"Probably."

"Tell me about her."

"I can't really add anything to what I've told you already. She was quite the most extraordinary person I've ever met. Completely cynical. She had no respect for anyone or anything. She didn't believe in God or retribution. She loathed mankind in general and the people of Fontwell in particular, and she considered everybody, past and present, beneath her. The only exception to that was Shakespeare. She thought Shakespeare was a towering genius." She fell silent.

"And you liked her?"

Sarah laughed. "I suppose I enjoyed the anarchy of it all. She put into words what most of us only think. I can't explain it any better than that. I always looked forward to seeing her."

"It must have been mutual or she wouldn't have left you her money."

Sarah didn't answer immediately. "I had no idea what she was planning." she said after a moment or two. She thrust a hand into her hair, fluffing it skyward. "It's come as a nasty shock. I feel I'm being manipulated and I don't like that."

He nodded. "According to Duggan, Mrs. Gillespie instructed the two executors to keep the whole thing secret." He examined the glowing tip of his cigarette. "The trouble is, we can't be sure that she herself didn't tell someone."

"If she had," said Sarah, "she would probably still be alive. Assuming she was murdered, of course."

"Meaning whoever killed her didn't know you were the beneficiary but thought they were?"

She nodded. "Something like that."

"Then it must have been the daughter or the granddaughter."

"It depends what was in the previous will. She may have made other bequests. People have been murdered for far tinier amounts than Joanna or Ruth were expecting to get."

"But that's assuming she was murdered for her money. It's also assuming that neither you nor anyone dependent on you murdered her."

"True," she said unemotionally.

"Did you murder her, Dr. Blakeney?"

"I wouldn't have done it that way, Sergeant. I would have taken my time." She gave a light chuckle. A little forced, he thought. "There was no hurry, after all. I've no outstanding debts and I certainly wouldn't want to link her death so closely to a will changed in my favour." She bent forward, clasping her hands between her knees. "And it would have looked very natural, too. Doctors have a built-in advantage when it comes to committing the perfect murder. A period of illness, followed by a gentle death. Nothing so dramatic or traumatic as slitting the wrists while wearing an instrument of torture."

"It might be a magnificent bluff," he said mildly. "As you say, who would suspect a doctor of doing something so crass within hours of an old lady making over three-quarters of a million pounds?"

Sarah stared at him with undisguised horror. "Three-quarters of a million?" she echoed slowly. "Is that what she was worth?"

"More or less. Probably more. It's a conservative estimate. Duggan's valued the house and its contents at around four hundred thousand, but the clocks alone were insured for well over a hundred thousand and that was based on a ten-year-old valuation. I'd hate to guess what they're worth now. Then there's the antique furniture, her jewellery and, of course, Mrs. Lascelles's flat in London, plus innumerable stocks and shares. You're a rich woman, Dr. Blakeney."

Sarah put her head in her hands. "Oh, my God!" she groaned. "You mean, Joanna doesn't even own her own flat?"

"No. It's part of Mrs. Gillespie's estate. If the old woman had had any sense she'd have made it over to her daughter in annual dollops to avoid anyone having to pay inheritance tax on it. As it is, the Treasury's going to have almost as big a windfall as you're getting." He sounded sympathetic. "And it'll be your job to decide what has to be sold off to pay the bill. You're not going to be very popular with the Lascelles women, I suspect."

"That must be the understatement of the year," said Sarah bleakly. "What on earth was Mathilda thinking of?"

"Most people would see it as manna from heaven."

"Including you?"

"Of course, but then I live in a very ordinary house, I've three grown-up children who touch me for money whenever they can, and I dream about retiring early and taking the wife on an extended cruise round the world." He glanced about the garden. "In your shoes, I'd probably react as you are reacting. You're not exactly short of a bob or two, and your conscience will stop you spending it on yourself. She was right when she said she was laying a burden on your shoulders."

Sarah digested this for a moment or two in silence. "Does that mean you don't think I murdered her?"

He looked amused. "Probably."

"Well, thank God for small mercies," she said dryly. "It's been worrying me."

"Your dependants, however, are a different matter. They stand to benefit just as much as you do from Mrs. Gillespie's death."

She looked surprised. "I don't have any dependants."

"You have a husband, Dr. Blakeney. I'm told he's dependent on you."

She stirred some leaves with the toe of her Wellington boot. "Not any more. We're separated. I don't even know where he is at the moment."

He took out his notebook and consulted it. "That must be fairly recent then. According to Mrs. Lascelles, he attended the funeral two days ago, went on to Cedar House afterwards for tea and then asked her to drive him back here at around six o'clock, which she did." He paused to look at her. "So when exactly did the separation begin?"

"He left some time that night. I found a note from him in the morning."

"Was it his idea or yours?"

"Mine. I told him I wanted a divorce."

"I see." He regarded her thoughtfully. "Was there a reason for choosing that night to do it?"

She sighed. "I was depressed by Mathilda's funeral. I found myself exploring that old chestnut, the meaning of life, and I wondered what the point of her life was. I suddenly realized that my own life was almost as pointless." She turned her head to look at him. "You probably think that sounds absurd. I'm a doctor, after all, and you don't enter medicine without some sort of vocation. It's like police work. We're in it because we believe we can make a difference." She gave a hollow laugh. "There's an awful arrogance in a statement like that. The presumption is that we know what we're doing when, frankly, I'm not sure that we do. Doctors strive officiously to keep people alive, because the law says we must, and we talk grandly about quality of life. But what is quality of life? I kept Mathilda's pain under control with some sophisticated drugs but the quality of her life was appalling, not because of pain, but because she was lonely, bitter, intensely frustrated and very unhappy." She shrugged. "I took a long hard look at myself and my husband during the funeral, and I realized that the same adjectives could be applied to the two of us. We were both lonely, both bitter, both frustrated and both unhappy. So I suggested a divorce, and he left." She smiled cynically. "It was as simple as that."

He felt sorry for her. Nothing was ever that simple, and it sounded to him as if she had tried to bluff a hand at poker, and lost. "Had he met Mrs. Lascelles before the funeral?"

"Not as far as I know I hadn't, so I can't imagine how he could have done."

"But he knew Mrs. Gillespie?"

She looked out across the garden, playing for time. "If he did, then it wasn't through me. He never mentioned meeting her."

DS Cooper's already lively interest in the absent Jack Blakeney was growing. "Why did he go to the funeral?"

"Because I asked him to." She straightened. "I hate funerals but I always feel I have to go to them. It seems so churlish to turn your back on a patient the minute they're dead. Jack was very good about lending support." Unexpectedly, she laughed. "To tell you the truth, I think he rather fancies himself in his black overcoat. He enjoys looking satanic."

Satanic. The Sergeant pondered over the word. Duncan Orloff had said Mathilda liked Blakeney. Mrs. Lascelles had described him as "a peculiar man who said very little and then demanded to be taken home." Ruth had found him "intimidating." The vicar, on the other hand, had had a great deal to say when Cooper had approached him about the various members of the funeral congregation. "Jack Blakeney? He's an artist though not a very successful one, poor chap. If it wasn't for Sarah, he'd be starving. Matter of fact, I like his work. I'd buy a canvas if only he'd lower his sights a little, but he knows his worth, or says he does, and refuses to sell himself cheap. Did he know Mathilda? Yes, he must have done. I saw him leaving her house one day with his sketchpad under his arm. She'd have been a wonderful subject for his type of work. He couldn't have resisted her."

He took the bull by the horns. "The Reverend Matthews tells me your husband was painting a portrait of Mrs. Gillespie. He must have known her quite well to do that." He lit another cigarette and watched Sarah through the smoke.

She sat for a long time in silence, contemplating a distant cow in a far field. "I feel inclined to say I won't answer any more questions until my solicitor's present," she murmured at last, "except that I have a nasty feeling you'd regard that as suspicious." He didn't say anything, so she glanced at him. There was no sympathy in the pleasant face, only a patient confidence that she would answer in the affirmative, with or without a solicitor. She sighed. "I could deny a portrait quite easily. They're all in the studio, and there isn't a chance in a million you'd recognize Mathilda's. Jack doesn't paint faces. He paints personalities. And you have to understand his colour-coding and the way he uses dynamics in shape, depth and perspective to interpret what he's done."

"But you're not going to deny it?" he suggested.

"Only because Jack won't, and I'm not particularly keen to perjure myself." She smiled and her eyes lit with enthusiasm. "Actually, it's brilliant. I think it's probably the best thing he's ever done. I found it yesterday just before you came." She pulled a wry face. "I knew it would be there because of something Ruth said. According to her, Jack mentioned that Mathilda called me her scold's bridle." She sighed again. "And he couldn't have known that unless Mathilda had told him, because I never did."

"May I see this painting?"

She ignored the question. "He wouldn't have murdered her, Sergeant, not for money, anyway. Jack despises materialism. The only use he has for money is as a guide to the value of his genius. Which is why he never sells anything. His own valuation of his art is rather higher than everybody else's." She smiled at his frown of disbelief. "Actually, it makes sense in a funny sort of way, but it's irritating because it's so conceited. The argument goes something like this: your average prole is incapable of recognizing genius so he won't be interested in buying your picture whatever price you put on it. While a Renaissance man, on the other hand, will recognize genius and will pay handsomely for it. Ergo, if you're a genius, you put a high price on yourself and wait for the right person to come and discover you."

"If you'll pardon the language, Dr. Blakeney, that is bullshit." He felt quite angry. "The man's conceit must be colossal. Has anyone else said he's a genius?"

"No one said Van Gogh was a genius either until after he was dead." Why, she wondered, did Jack's single-minded view of himself always put people's backs up? Was it because, in an uncertain world, his certainty was threatening? "It really doesn't matter," she said calmly, "what sort of an artist Jack is. Good, bad, indifferent. I happen to think he's good, but that's a personal opinion. The point is he would never have killed Mathilda for her money, assuming he knew she'd made the will in my favour, which I doubt. Why should she have told him when she never told me?"

"Except that he thought you were going to divorce him and push him into the cold."

"Hardly. That would leave me enjoying the loot all by myself, wouldn't it? How could he get his hands on the inheritance if he and I were divorced?" I'll be going for a fifty-fifty split ... She pushed that thought away. "And in any case, two weeks ago when Mathilda died, he didn't know I wanted to divorce him. How could he? I didn't know myself."

Cooper took that with a pinch of salt. "These things don't happen out of the blue, Dr. Blakeney. He must have had an inkling that the marriage was in difficulties."

"You're underestimating Jack's egotism," she answered with a somewhat bitter irony. "He's far too self-centred to notice anyone else's unhappiness unless he's painting them. Believe me, my decision did come out of the blue. For him, anyway."

He puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette. "Do you expect him to come back at all?"

"Oh, yes. He'll want to collect his paintings if nothing else."

"Good. Some of the fingerprints we lifted may well be his. It will help if we can eliminate them. Yours, too, of course. There'll be a team taking prints in Fontwell on Wednesday morning. I assume you've no objections to giving yours? They'll be destroyed afterwards." He took her silence for assent. "You say you don't know where your husband is, but can you think of anyone who might be in contact with him?"

"Only my solicitor. He's promised to let me know the minute he hears anything."

The Sergeant dropped his cigarette end on to the damp grass and stood up, drawing his mackintosh about him. "No friends he might have gone to?"

"I've tried everyone I can think of. He's not been in touch with any of them."

"Then perhaps you'll be so kind as to write out your solicitor's name and phone number while I take a look at this painting." He grinned. "In view of what you've said, I'm fascinated to see if I can make anything of it."

Sarah found his careful appraisal of the picture rather impressive. He stood for a long time without saying anything, then asked her if Jack had done a portrait of her. She fetched hers from the drawing-room and placed it alongside the one of Mathilda. He resumed his silent study.

"Well," he said at last, "you're quite right. I would never have guessed that this was a portrait of Mrs. Gillespie, any more than I would have guessed that that was a portrait of you. I can see why no one else considers him a genius."

Sarah's disappointment surprised her. But what had she expected? He was a country policeman, not a Renaissance man. She forced the polite smile to her lips that was her customary response to other people's often rude comments on Jack's paintings and wondered, not for the first time, why she was the only person who seemed able to appreciate them. It wasn't as if she were blinded by love-rather the reverse in fact-and yet, to her, the portrait of Mathilda was extraordinary and brilliant. Jack had worked layer on layer to bring a deep golden translucence into the heart of the painting-Mathilda's wit, she thought, shining through the complex blues and greys of cruelty and cynicism. And round it all the browns of despair and repression, and the rusted red of iron, shorthand in Jack's work for backbone and character, but moulded here into the shape of the scold's bridle.

She shrugged. After all, perhaps it was a mercy the Sergeant couldn't see it. "As I said, he paints personalities and not faces."

"When did he paint the one of you?"

"Six years ago."

"And has your personality changed in six years?"

"I shouldn't think so. Personalities change very little, Sergeant, which is why Jack likes to paint them. You are what you are. A generous person remains generous. A bully remains a bully. You can smooth the rough edges but you can't transform the core. Once painted, the personality should be recognizable for ever."

He rubbed his hands together in anticipation of a challenge. "Then let's see if I can work out his system. There's a lot of green in yours and your most obvious characteristics are sympathy-no-" he contradicted himself immediately, "empathy-you enter into other people's feelings, you don't make a judgement on them. So, empathy, honour-you're an honourable woman or you wouldn't feel so racked with guilt about this bequest-truthful-most people would have lied about this painting-nice." He turned to look at her. "Does niceness count as a personality trait or is it too flabby?"

She laughed. "Far too flabby, and you're ignoring the unpleasant aspects. Jack sees two sides to everybody."

"All right." He stared at her portrait. "You're a very opinionated woman who is confident enough to fly in the face of established fact, otherwise you wouldn't have liked Mrs. Gillespie. A corollary to that is that you are also naive or your views wouldn't be so divergent from everyone else's. You're inclined to be rash or you wouldn't be regretting your husband's departure, and that implies a depth of affection for hopeless causes which is probably why you became a doctor and probably, too, why you were so fond of the old bitch in this amazing painting next to you. How am I doing for a prole?"

She gave a surprised chuckle. "Well, I don't think you are a prole," she said. "Jack would adore you. Renaissance man in all his glory. They are good, aren't they?"

"How much does he charge for them?"

"He's only ever sold one. It was a portrait of one of his lovers. He got ten thousand pounds for it. The man who bought it was a Bond Street dealer, who said Jack was the most exciting artist he'd ever come across. We thought our ship had come in, then three months later the poor soul was dead, and no one's expressed an interest since."

"That's not true. The Reverend Matthews told me he'd buy a canvas like a shot if they were cheaper. Come to that, so would I. Has he ever done a man and wife? I'd go to two thousand for me and the old girl over the mantelpiece." He studied Mathilda closely. "I take it the gold is her one redeeming feature of humour. My old lady's a laugh a minute. She'd be gold through and through. I'd love to see it."

There was a sound behind them. "And what colour would you be?" asked Jack's amused voice.

Sarah's heart leapt, but Sergeant Cooper only eyed him thoughtfully for a moment or two. "Assuming I've interpreted these pictures correctly, sir, I'd say a blend of blues and purples, for hard-headed cynicism-cum-realism, common to your wife and Mrs. Gillespie, some greens which I think must represent the decency and honour of Dr. Blakeney because they are markedly absent from Mrs. Gillespie's portrait," he smiled, "and a great deal of black."

"Why black?"

"Because I'm in the dark," he said with ponderous humour, fishing his warrant card from his inside pocket. "Detective Sergeant Cooper, sir, Learmouth Police. I'm enquiring into the death of Mrs. Mathilda Gillespie of Cedar House, Fontwell. Perhaps you'd like to tell me why she sat for you with the scold's bridle on her head? In view of the way she died, I find that fascinating."