Flowers for His Funeral
by
Arm Granger

Don't miss the other Mitchell and Markbv Cotswuld mysteries,
SAY IT WITH POISON, A SEASON I OR MURDf.  R, Pl.  ACe FOR DLATH anil
CANDl.  i, 1-OR A CORPSh, all available from Headline "Deft plotting
and elegant descriptive prose ... a delicate conui touch and endearini;
eccentric second.in characters' /W?/)' / 'r.< \Vccklv Cover
illustration by Davit) Hopkins United Kingdom 4.99 ISBN 0-7472-4770-6

^Australia $12.95 111111111111111111111111111111 00499 *= Recommended
Price Only HEADLINE Fiction Crime In common with her heroine, Arm
Granger has worked in British embassies in various parts of the
world.

She met her husband, who was also working for the British Embassy, in
Prague and together they received postings to places as far apart as
Munich and Lusaka.

They are now permanently based in Bicester, near Oxford.  SAY IT WITH
POISON, Arm Granger's first Mitchell and Markby mystery, was also her
first crime novel.  Arm is currently at work on her eighth Mitchell and
Markby novel.

Also by Arm Granger Say It With Poison A Season For Murder Cold In The
Earth Murder Among Us Where Old Bones Lie A Fine Place For Death

HEADLINE

Copyright 1994 Arm Granger The right of Arm Granger to be identified as
the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 1994 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING First published in
paperback in 1995 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING 10987654321 All rights
reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without
the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise
circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it
is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN 07472 4770 6 Typeset by Keyboard Services, Luton, Beds Printed and
bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks HEADLINE BOOK
PUBLISHING A division of Hodder Headline PLC 338 Euston Road London

NW13BH

A few old men, called watchmen .  and a few magistrates and police
officers are the only persons whose employment is to detect and punish
de predators yet no city .  is more free from danger.  The Picture of
London for 1818 A man who saunters about London .  or who mixes in
great crowds .  without especial care .  deserves no pity on account of
the losses he may sustain.

Ibid.

chelsea, a village in Middlesex .  two miles West from London.

Chapter One 'you'll have to walk the dogs today, Nevil!  " proclaimed
Mrs James.

I've got to drive into Chippy and collect the dog meal and the cat
litter."  Her son looked up from a table covered with papers.  He took
off his spectacles and blinked at her, his pale blue eyes focusing with
difficulty on a blurred shape, gradually transforming it into a
clear-cut image.

Mrs James watched this process, thinking, as she frequently did, that
if it weren't for his glasses, Nevil would be passably good looking.

Whenever she made this judgement she felt a mixture of maternal pride
and savage satisfaction.  As long as no girl got her hooks into Nevil,
he'd stay here and help out.  Despite a deep-seated scorn for the male
sex in general, Mrs James acknowledged that one needed a man about the
place, even if it was only Nevil.

"I've started on the monthly accounts," Nevil said.

"Can't Gillian do it?"

"Of course she can't.  She's got all the cats' cages to clean out.  In
fact, you could give her a hand doing that once you've walked the
dogs.

There are only four of them at present.  Look here, you can do the
accounts tonight."

At this schedule, which took care of his entire day, Nevil was moved to
protest rather more firmly.

"I have got things of my own to do, you know!"

"Like what?"

Mrs James was pulling on a quilted sleeveless body- warmer, her best or
rather her better one because she was going into town.  It was her sole
attempt to smarten up.  She wore brown cord trousers with a khaki
cotton shirt and heavy lace-up shoes.  The bulge of the shirt over her
large and unsupported bosom was the only indication of her sex.  Her
hair, cut very short in a mannish style, was steel-grey and wiry, like
a scouring pad.  Her face was weather-beaten and lined and devoid of
make-up.  She was only forty-nine years old, but the impression was
that she'd been carved out of teak and left out in the rain and wind so
that she was now a permanent part of the landscape.

As always, the suggestion that Nevil had any interests which didn't
directly concern the kennels and cattery stoked the fires of suspicion
and resentment in her battle-scarred heart.

"I promised Rachel I'd go over to Malefis.  She wants another chess
lesson and it has to be today, because tomorrow she and Alex are going
up to London, to the Chelsea Flower Show."

"For heaven's sake!"  Mrs James's tanned face turned a dull,
unattractive magenta.

"Can't that useless woman even keep herself entertained for one day in
the country?"

"She isn't useless," said Nevil, flushing slightly.

"She just isn't like you, Ma."  In the nick of time he added,
"Capable."

His mother squinted at him.

"I'm capable because I've bloody had to be.  I've worked hard to keep a
roof over our heads, Nevil!"

"I know, Ma."  He replaced his spectacles and picked up his pen.  He
sounded bored.  She knew it was because she'd played this tune so many
times his ear was dulled to it, but she couldn't help it.  She felt
angry, with a sullen rage which burned away inside her, because she
wouldn't be able to stop Nevil walking away from her one day, just as
his father had done.  Nevil was twenty-seven years old and like his
father in looks.

"Dammit!"  said Mrs James fiercely.

Nevil carried on writing.  He was used to incoherent muttering from his
mother.

"Don't suppose she's got the brains to play chess!"  His mother was
still running on their former topic of conversation.

"Try her with Snakes and Ladders.  She ought to be good at that!"

"Actually, she's rather good at chess.  She's got a natural aptitude
for the game."

Mrs James had her own idea as to what Rachel Constantine's natural
aptitude was, but she suppressed it.

"Don't forget the dogs!"  she almost shouted.

"When I've done this, Ma."

She stomped out crossly.  He was getting increasingly obstinate and
rebellious.  All because of that wretched woman, that tar ted-up piece
of goods who flitted around Lynstone dressed like a model and had any
man who crossed her path panting to do her slightest bidding.

"Like a bitch on heat!"  snarled Mrs James, glaring through the trees
at a distant chimney pot.  God rot Malefis Abbey and Rachel Constantine
in particular!  Nevil, poor sod, hadn't the wit to see she was playing
fast and loose with him, that was the worst of it.  A woman like that
wasn't going to risk her marriage by seriously playing away from home,
certainly not with someone like Nevil, who hadn't any money.  The
minute the husband got restive, Rachel would show Nevil the door.  Then
there'd be hell to pay.  He might even want to leave Lynstone and go
away to forget or some such maudlin rubbish.

"Dammit!"  yelled Mrs James again to the trees.

A voice replied, "What was that, Molly?"

A large, ungainly girl in jeans, gum boots and an aged sweater appeared
holding a brush and a bucket.

"Nothing!"  snapped Mrs James.

"Have you finished with those cats yet?"

"Nearly.  That ginger one scratched me again.  When's the owner coming
for it?"

"Next week."  Mrs James scowled at Gillian, but it wasn't in
antipathy.

The girl was a good worker, and no threat as far as Nevil was
concerned.  Men were never going to bother with Gillian.  In Mrs
James's mind, that was a plus in more ways than one.  Gillian wouldn't
up and leave.  She liked the animals and she was shy around people.

And if the girl only realised it, she was lucky in being so plain.

Because men, if you let them into your life, messed you and the said
life up completely.

Grudgingly Mrs James was forced to admit, in the light of recent
experience, that women could do a pretty good job on men's lives too.

The fact was that any human contact was fraught with deceit, danger and
heartbreak.

"Give me a decent working gun-dog any day!"  muttered Mrs James as she
climbed up into a Japanese four-wheel- drive vehicle parked beside a
battered old Escort.  She roared away down the drive, turning into the
lane with a screech of tyres and mini-sandstorm of grit.

A cyclist was pedalling unwarily along the narrow thoroughfare.  He
wobbled as Mrs James came up behind him, and looked fearfully over his
shoulder.

"Get out of the way!"  yelled Mrs James, gesticulating through the
windscreen.

He chose safety and leapt off his bike.  He was picking himself up out
of the ditch as she vanished around the corner.

Mrs James charged on, hands gripping the wheel, shoulders hunched, face
furious.  She was going to have to do something about Nevil and Rachel
Constantine.  If necessary, she would have to get rid of Rachel in some
fairly drastic way.  She wasn't yet sure how.  She'd think of
something.

The kennel maid Gillian Hardy, finished her task and put away her
bucket, shovel and broom with a sigh of relief.  She began to make her
way towards the house.  Behind her, the dogs were all barking because
it was about this time of the morning that someone walked them.  She
removed her boots at the back porch door with the aid of a wooden
bootjack there for the purpose and entered on stockinged feet.  The
kitchen was empty.

Gillian padded across the stone-flagged floor and into the large
adjacent cloakroom which held the usual offices and washbasin.  She
washed and dried her hands carefully, while staring at a row of outdoor
garments suspended there from hooks.  One of them, a woman's tweed
jacket of ancient but distinguished vintage, the sort of thing which
turned up at country jumble sales, seemed to hold a particular
fascination for her.  She swallowed audibly, her throat dry partly from
inhaling animal bedding, and partly because of the excitement which
made her skin crawl.  Her stomach had become a pulsating jelly lodged
uncomfortably beneath her midriff.

At last Gillian moved jerkily past the jacket, as if it might suddenly
reach out its rough woollen arms and grab her.  Back in the kitchen,
she switched on the coffee-maker, put two digestive biscuits on a
plate, took down two mugs and fetched the milk from the fridge.

All the time she was listening with her head tilted rather like one of
her canine charges for any noise from the further room, where she knew
Nevil sat over the accounts.

Eventually she took the plate of biscuits and a mug of coffee, and made
her way to where he scribbled industriously.

"Thanks!"  he muttered without looking up as she put her offering
beside him.

She hesitated and began to turn away.  Suddenly he asked, "That woman
who inquired about boarding a corgi for two weeks.  Did she ever phone
back and confirm?"

"Don't think so.  Molly didn't say."

"Ruddy woman will probably just turn up and expect everything to be
ready.

You'd better get a kennel organised, Gill."

"OK.  I'll do it before I go off."

"No, do it tomorrow morning.  There's no rush."

His tone dismissed her.  She went back to the kitchen and set her own
coffee mug on the table, adding a biscuit from the tin.  But try though
she might, she couldn't keep her gaze from drifting to the door of the
cloakroom.  She sat down facing it, dunking her biscuit and gulping
down the now-tepid brew.

Nevil, when she went back to see if he'd finished, was still working.

He didn't look up.

Gillian said awkwardly, "I know you're busy, so would you like me to
walk the dogs before I go?"

He paused and she was rewarded with a glance.  More pleasantly he said,
"It's OK, Gill.  I'll do it when I've finished this lot."

"It's no trouble!"  Eagerness touched her voice.

"Appreciate it, Gillie.  But you get off home.  It'syourhalf day.  Pity
you couldn't have gone into town with Ma."

She washed the mugs and plate, her earlier exhilaration doused with a
temporary depression.  But back in the cloakroom to fetch her
going-home things, she experienced a return of the nervous thrill.

Now she and the jacket were to be reunited or, more specifically, she
and what the jacket contained .  She pulled it on hurriedly, its rough
weave rubbing at her fingers, and crouched to tie up the pair of shoes
which had been standing tidily in one corner.

"I'm leaving now!"  she called.

From Nevil came a barely audible grunt.

Despite this lack of encouragement she called, "Goodbye!  Don't
overwork!"

She left her gum boots just inside the back porch to await the next
day, and drove home in the elderly Escort.  Whenever she moved her left
arm, something crackled in the patch-pocket of the jacket.  It was as
though her pocket were on fire, and her nerves were so strung that when
her foot touched the accelerator, the old car leapt forward like a
Formula One racing machine.

Her mother was waiting with her coat on and her scuffed leather handbag
on the table.  The kitchen smelled of tinned tomato and washing-up
water.

"Oh, Gillian," said Mrs Hardy.

"I'm glad you're not late today.  You will be staying in this
afternoon, won't you?  I know it's your afternoon off, but I would like
to go over and see Mrs Freeman, and you know I don't like to leave Dad
alone."  This ought to have been phrased, "Dad doesn't like being left
alone' but, although the cottage was run in every way to take account
of Mr Hardy, there was a sort of conspiracy to obscure this fact.

Gillian and her mother between them took responsibility for any
decision, while Mr Hardy did the actual deciding.

"OK," said Gillian.

"Perhaps I'll tidy up the garden."

"Dad and I shared a tin of soup for lunch.  If you want something,
there's cheese--' " I ate at the kennels."  This wasn't true.  All
she'd had was the coffee and biscuit, but Mrs Hardy didn't know this.

"I've got sausages for tea," she said, picking up her handbag.

"Dad's settled down with his library book.  The picture's drying off or
something, so I don't think he'll be going out to his studio.  He
shouldn't be any ... he shouldn't need anything."

When she'd scurried away, Gillian went into the tiny living room with
its low,-oak-beamed ceiling.  Her father was sitting in his invalid
chair by the window, from which he could see the road and The Fox pub
opposite.  He was reading a thriller, scowling disbelievingly at the
text.  As his daughter entered he looked up and addressed her without
the preliminary of a greeting.

"It's late-night opening at the library tonight in Chippy.  After tea,
you jump in that car of yours and nip in and change my books.  I've
read this one before.  Look-' he held it out 'there's my pencil-mark,
on the back page!

I've told your mother a dozen times, always look for my mark!  But she
never remembers."

"OK.  I'm going up to my room to change."

He was already scowling over his book again and didn't reply.  Gillian
went up to her tiny bedroom under the eaves and pulled off her working
clothes.

She put on another pair of jeans and a clean sweater, picked up the
tweed jacket and took it over to her bed.

Seated cross-legged on the coverlet, she thrust her hand into a pocket
of the jacket and took out a crumpled manila envelope.  It was chilly
in this little room, never heated, but she was sweating.

Her fingers scrabbled at the envelope.  The collywobbles had returned
and were getting even worse as she took out two creased photographs
which she carefully placed flat, side by side, on the patchwork
counterpane.

The pictures were black and white and quite large, about six inches by
four.

One showed Mrs James with a cat, and the other Mrs James with a dog.

The dog was panting happily and the cat, brushed into a puffball of
fur, was giving the camera a look which spoke volumes.

Both pictures had been taken the year before to illustrate a brochure
on the kennels intended to drum up trade.  The glossy originals had
obviously had some rough treatment since then.  But the principal
damage to them wasn't the result of much handling.

In both, the face of Mrs James had been deliberately and savagely
scored with a razor-blade so that it was no longer recognisable.  The
perky grin of the dog and groomed head of the cat remained untouched,
which only served to underline the destruction to the human face.

There was method in the mutilation.  A line had been cut across the
eyes, another down the nose.  Both ears had been sliced through at the
head.  The mouth was scored with a cross like a multiplication sign and
the throat was cut.

Gillian chewed on her lower lip, but otherwise showed no sign of
emotion.

The fluttering of her stomach had subsided now that she actually had
her eyes on the photos.

After a while, she slipped the grisly images back in their envelope
and, getting off the bed, went to a narrow, built- in cupboard in the
corner which served as her wardrobe.  Nothing about this ancient
cottage was regular; there wasn't a right-angle in the place.  Between
the side of wardrobe and the undulating plaster of the wall there was
sufficient gap to slide the envelope in.  She had to leave just a
little showing, to be sure of getting it back out again.  But Mrs
Hardy, in the unlikely event she came into Gillian's room, wouldn't
notice that.  Mrs Hardy was entirely taken up with looking after Mr
Hardy.  She left Gillian to clean her own room and see to her own
laundry.

So the photographs were safe while she worked out just what she was
going to do with them.  Gillian was a careful girl.  She liked to plan
things.

Chapter Two As bad luck would have it, Meredith Mitchell saw her
first.

Had Alan Markby done so, as he freely admitted later, he would have
taken steps to avoid her.  They wouldn't have been drawn into it.

They'd have read about it in the papers and expressed a decent shock
and that would have been that.

Fate had decreed otherwise.

It was difficult enough in the crowded Grand Marquee on the penultimate
day of the Chelsea Flower Show to pick out any one individual in the
seething mass.  It was getting late in the afternoon.  Tiredness was
taking its toll.

It was very hot and, despite the bright smiles and undimmed enthusiasm,
a certain lack of good humour was beginning to invade the atmosphere.

Gardeners are on the whole placid souls.  But they had all plodded
round the many exhibits, the model gardens, the various stands, the
garden furniture displays and vendors of gardening aids of every
conceivable kind.  They had inspected the book stalls and those selling
little packs of dried herbs.

They'd sat on the grass under the trees and listened to the band of the
Grenadier Guards, as they'd eaten their sandwiches; they'd queued for
and drunk warm Pimms.  No wonder tempers all round were slightly
strained by the time.

Meredith and Alan at last plunged into the Grand Marquee.

In there it was, said Meredith gloomily, rather as she fancied the
Battle of Waterloo might have been.  Many of the visitors were elderly
and several of those infirm, but their determination was in no way
impaired.  She had been jostled on all sides.  Attempts to stop and
view any particular stand were impeded by others anxious to do
likewise.  That was if, of course, one were able to get near the stand
in the first place.  The ones with the walking sticks were the worst.

They used them like bayonets.

Despite all this, she had to admit it was a magnificent display and,
although it was Alan, rather than she, who was the gardener, she didn't
regret having agreed to accompany him to this most famous of all flower
shows.  But she would, all the same, be quite glad to get out of
here.

"I want," Markby said, 'to take a picture of those roses."  He was
fumbling with his camera case.

"Do you want me in it?"  Stupid question.

"No.  No, thanks.  I want to get as much of the roses in as possible.

Can you stand over there out of the way?  " Meredith moved to one side
and stood, idly contemplating the crowd as it surged happily around
her.  Alan was fiddling about trying to get the right angle, or
whatever.  She wandered away a little and studied a cottage garden
stall.  It had been awarded a silver-gilt medal.  The irony of it all,
she reflected, was that neither she nor Alan possessed a proper
garden.

Her little terraced cottage in Bamford had a tiny paved yard containing
a dustbin and a pot of fuchsia.  Alan's patio garden and greenhouse,
behind his Victorian villa, allowed a little more scope.

The lack didn't matter to her, but Alan longed for a proper garden.

Although, if he'd had one, he'd have had no time for it.  Police work
was like that.  It swallowed up one's life.

Meredith sighed.  Then, coming towards her, she saw the woman.

In this crowd, she moved freely, her hand holding that of her
companion.

Possibly this was what had caught Meredith's eye first.  A couple, not
teenagers or early twenties, holding hands.  She and Alan hardly ever
held hands, not in public and seldom in private.  So perhaps her
original reaction was a wistfulness which she at once rejected.  Then,
of course, there was the ease with which the couple proceeded through
the crowd.  People stepped back to allow them through and, despite so
much else to look at, heads turned.

The woman knew it.  She expected it.  Yet she ignored the glances and
only smiled up at the man, or pointed like a surprised child at some
colourful bloom.

She struck Meredith as vaguely familiar.  She was of middle height and
about Meredith's age, early thirties.  She was, however, considerably
better dressed, coiffed and generally turned out than Meredith.

Meredith had dressed practically for the occasion, in a plain dress and
flat shoes.  Her thick brown hair was cut in a bob, and her face was
adorned with the minimum makeup.  Being tall she was five-ten she was
always disinclined to make herself look, as she described it, like a
maypole decorated out in too many bright ribbons.  Her instinct was to
dress down.

Not so the woman approaching her.  Her face had that sort of alabaster
prettiness set fast by layers of expensive make-up on a skin which was
regularly attended to by professional beauticians.  She wore a simple
but expensive casual skirt in a pale pattern of pink-grey flowers, and
a matching sleeveless jacket over a nile-green silk blouse.  Her hair
was long, curling, honey-coloured, brushing her shoulders.  The man was
tall, heavily built and florid, faintly Levantine in appearance.

She looked an expensive young woman, and he looked like the sort of man
who could afford to indulge her.  The couple appeared, in fact,
well-matched and happy.

And then Meredith identified her.  Something in her brain clicked.  A
picture was thrown up, as if from a projector on to a screen.  Not a
picture of an elegant and poised woman, but of a sixteen-year-old
schoolgirl in a short net ball skirt, her honey-coloured hair braided
into a single long plait.

Gripping the ball to her chest and purple faced with effort, the
schoolgirl net ball player of memory sought out the nearest, and
tallest, team member.

"Merry!"  yelled a voice down the passage of the years.  "Ray!"  yelled
Meredith now.

"Ray Hunter!"

She dashed forward so impulsively that she almost collided with another
show visitor, a woman.  She wore one of the soft-brimmed, head-hugging
velour hats which had become so popular, pulled down over her long,
curling brown hair.

She threw up her programme in some alarm as she dodged aside.  Meredith
gabbled a hasty word of apology.

As for the pretty blonde, she was staring at Meredith, recognition
dawning in her eyes.

"I don't believe it!  It's Merry!  Meredith Mitchell!"  They beamed
atone another.

"Gosh, Ray," said Meredith, 'you're looking well!  " It was an
understatement.

The blonde indicated the man beside her.

"I'm not Hunter now, I'm Constantine.  This is my husband, Alex."  The
man beside her moved forward and smiled.  His mouth and nose were well
formed but fleshy, his chin beginning to fill out and lose its line.

His hair must once have been jet black, and although it had turned iron
grey, it remained thick and wavy.  He must have been, and still was, a
very handsome man.

Meredith shook hands with him.

"Your wife and I were at school together, a - a long time ago!"

"Not that long!"  said Mrs Constantine quickly.

Alex said, "This is very nice.  I'm pleased to meet you, er,
Meredith?

May I?  "

"Yes, of course!"  He was the courteous kind.  He was, Meredith
reflected, a dying breed.

The woman in the velour hat edged past them with a sideways glance, her
hand holding out her catalogue at arm's length, as if to ward off any
further unexpected moves on Meredith's part.  Meredith smiled
apologetically at her again and noted, with fleeting amusement, that
although the woman was smartly dressed, her hand was roughened and her
carmine-painted nails were trimmed to a practical short length.

Good grooming could be a problem to true gardening aficionados who
spent their days scrabbling recalcitrant weeds from their carefully
tended flowerbeds.

"Are you here alone?"  Ray Hunter Constantine asked.  Her appearance,
and the smooth-skinned hand with polished oval nails which pressed
Meredith's, clearly announced that she never lifted a trowel.  Her
gardening, if any, of the supervisory kind.

"No my friend's taking a photo of the roses.  Hang on, I'll go and get
him!

Don't move!"

Meredith retreated and sought out Markby who was putting his camera
back in its case.

"Alan!  The most amazing thing!  I've just bumped into someone I was at
school with for a couple of years and her husband!

Well," she frowned, 'she wasn't exactly a bosom chum, but we were
contemporaries at Winstone House and played for the net ball team
together."

She grabbed his arm.

"Thought you were a convent girl!"  he protested in startled tones as
he was hauled forward.

"Do you say Winstone House?  I never knew you were a pupil there!

That's--' She interrupted him impatiently.

"I was at the convent until I got rather religious at fourteen and my
father became worried I might choose the veil!  He moved me to Winstone
House for my two last school years!  Come on, you must meet her.  She's
called Ray Constantine now, but she was Ray Hunter."

"What?"  Markby asked urgently.

"What Hunter?  Wait, hang on a minute, Meredith..."

Meredith dismissed his incoherent protests, which came, in any case,
too late.  They already faced the other couple.

"This is Alan Markby!"  she announced.

"How do you do, Markby?"  said Constantine, holding out his hand.

But Markby and Mrs Constantine were staring at one another, Alan
red-faced and annoyed and the lady amused.

"Hullo, Alan!"  she said.

"Hullo, Rachel," said Markby.

"Darling," said Mrs Constantine to her husband, 'what a coincidence!

It's Alan, my exIt's Rachel," said Markby crossly to Meredith.

"My former wife!"

"I'm extremely pleased to meet you, anyway!"  said Constantine
smoothly.  Nothing about him suggested a man easily thrown off his
stride, and he wasn't now.  The appearance of his wife's first husband
was no more than one of those social crossing of paths such as happened
at any cocktail party.

"What fun!"  said Rachel, her green eyes sparkling maliciously.

"And now you're together with Merry!"  She raised a finely drawn
eyebrow.

"In a manner of speaking," Markby said.

"Are you enjoying the show?  I didn't realise you'd taken up
horticulture, Rachel!"

"Don't be silly, Alan.  I haven't.  But we've got such a big garden at
Malefis Abbey, and we came up looking for suitable new plants.  Martin
takes care of the garden.  We brought him with us today.  He's our
chauffeur as well as our gardener and he's around somewhere.  He's been
told to pick out the right plants and let us know.  I told him to write
all the names down, because Alex and I wouldn't know one flower from
another, and nothing about soil type and acidity and all the rest of
it!  Would we, darling?"  She squeezed his arm, and added airily, "But
everyone comes to the Chelsea Flower Show, don't they?"

She had emphasised the word 'everyone' slightly, and Markby gave a
small, dry smile.

The excruciating embarrassment of the situation was not lost on
Meredith.

But, like Constantine, she knew there was nothing to do now but simply
carry on as if all this were normal.  She restricted her surprise to
asking Rachel, "You drove here?  We came by train.  Where on earth did
you park?"

"Oh, a friend of ours lives nearby but she's away, so we used her
parking space.  Handy.  Are you still a policeman, Alan?  " The tip of
her tongue, like a sliver of coral, touched her full top lip.

"Still a policeman."

Constantine looked interested.

"Really?  Which branch?"

"CID."  Markby was sounding as wooden as any stage constable.

"Cops and robbers!"  said Rachel with a little throaty gurgle.

"You always did love it, Alan!  How about you, Merry?"

"I joined the foreign service, but I'm based in London now.  I commute
from Bamford every day."

Rather late, Meredith was beginning to remember how annoying she'd
always found Rachel Hunter.  She cursed the impulsive way she'd dragged
Alan to meet the Constantines.  It wasn't as though she and Rachel had
ever been very close.  The only time they'd spent together had been at
net ball practices and matches.  Otherwise each had frequented a quite
different circle of friends.  It would have been quite sufficient
merely to have exchanged a brief, surprised greeting.

"Bamford?  Good Lord, are you still there, Alan?  I'd have thought
you'd've moved on long ago!  We haven't been so very far away from one
another, then, all these years.  Malefis Abbey isn't far from Chipping
Norton.  It's at a place called Lynstone, an hour's drive from Bamford,
if that."

"This calls for a drink," Constantine said.

"I suggest the champagne bar.  It would be nice, I think, to get out of
this crush."

This was pushing sangfroid to its absolute limits!  thought Meredith.

Even Rachel looked surprised and stared at her husband.  Constantine
gave her a slightly anxious smile and raised his eyebrows, seeking her
approval.

"Yes, why not?  Actually, what a good idea!"  Rachel said brightly.

"Only do take a photo of Merry and me reunited first, Alan!  No chaps,
just the two of us girls, posed against the flowers!"  She moved
effortlessly into place.

"Come on, Merry!"  she ordered.

"Stand here by me!"

This was the net ball team captain speaking.  Meredith remembered that
Ray Hunter had always been the one in charge.  They all moved to obey
her commands without a murmur of protest, though Alan, she noticed, was
beginning to look harassed.  Meredith joined Rachel by the flower
display and wished she'd worn something smarter.  Constantine
obligingly moved well away, right out of the frame.

"All right there?"  Markby was unwillingly un slinging the camera from
round his neck.  He raised the viewfinder to his eye.

"Say cheese, or whatever!"

Meredith disliked having her photo taken.  It was worse when aware that
beside her Rachel, a natural at this sort of thing, had struck an
attractive pose and was giving the lens a dazzling smile.  The crowd
was jostling around them, bumping into Markby and making it difficult
for him to hold the camera steady.  Meredith fixed her mouth into a
strained grin and muttered, "Hurry up, Alan, do!"

The camera clicked.  The crowd pushed forward, including those few who
had hung back seeing that someone was trying to take a photograph.

There was a swirl of bodies.  Constantine gave a loud gasp and an
exclamation of surprise and, it seemed, some pain.  Meredith heard it
and looked across at him.  He was standing by himself, the crowd
streaming past him, and frowning as if puzzled or angry.

"Fine!"  said Markby, "Or I think it should be all right.  Might've
chopped your feet off."

The subjects moved away from the flower stand.

"Rachel," Meredith whispered, 'is Alex all right?  " Rachel stared at
her, then swung on her heel.

"Alex?"  Her voice rose sharply.

Constantine looked up and made a gesture of apology.

"I think something stung me!  Some insect or other must have been
brought in on the flowers.  Really, it was quite painful..."  His hand
moved awkwardly to fumble at his spine.

"Perhaps it's something off the tropical plants?"  Meredith offered.

"They ought to make sure those plants are quite insect- free!"  Rachel
said crossly.

"We'll go outside, Alex!  The air will be fresher."  To the others she
explained in a low voice, "Alex did have a heart attack last year, and
we have to be careful of twinges of pain.  It's very hot in here and
it's been rather a long day.  We left Lynstone very early.  I think we
ought to start home, straight away."

"There's bound to be a first-aid place," Markby said, eyeing
Constantine.

"Without wishing to be alarmist, some insect stings can produce nasty
reactions.  We'll skip the champagne, I think!"  He was plainly glad of
the excuse to do that, but the look he was giving Alex was a concerned
one.

"It's over on the Western Avenue," Meredith said.

"I noticed the first-aid station after we came out of the Floral
Displays' tent."

But Constantine, who had been contorting himself to reach the middle of
his back, now straightened and gave a little laugh.  He held out his
hand.  Lying on the palm was a thin, needle-like spike.

"It was this!  A cactus spine, I think, of some kind.  I must have
brushed against the stand and broken it off.  The organiser of the
display will be very annoyed with me!  It must have been caught in my
jacket.  When the crowd became so agitated just now, someone did bump
against me.  This cactus spine must have been pushed through."

"Let me see."  Markby held out his hand.

"I don't remember seeing any plant bearing spines of that sort--'
Rachel peered at the cactus spine dubiously.

"I still think it would be better if we set off home.  Going to this
first-aid station will only delay us, and I don't suppose they'll do
anything.  It's been an awfully tiring day for poor Alex.  Let's go
back to the car, darling."

She took her husband's arm in an impatient grip.

"It is only just round the corner from here.  I think if you sit in it
while I come back and find Martin, he can drive us back to Malefis.

Then tomorrow we'll ask Dr Staunton to call and give you a once-over.

You'll say I'm just fussing, but I'm sure I'm right."

"Ah, I've dropped it!"  Constantine apologised to Markby.  "Never
mind.

It's not important, after all."

"We're just about to leave," Markby told him.

"Aren't we, Meredith?

We can walk with you to your car."

"Perhaps it might be best for us to leave, as my wife says."

Constantine cast his spouse a wry grimace.

"But please!"  He put out a hand towards the other two.

"I don't want to drag you both away."

"Good Lord, you're not doing that!  We'll all be better out of this
crush!"

Markby took out his handkerchief and wiped his face.

"It's far too warm for me!"

They made their way slowly out of the tent and the grounds into Royal
Hospital Road, and thence to a nearby court of dark red-brick houses.

Along the way, Constantine had begun to show signs of unsteadiness, his
breathing laboured.  Rachel was obviously concerned, but she was also,
Meredith fancied, finding her husband's indisposition something of a
nuisance.  This was not how she would have planned the day to end and
whatever plans she'd had were now clearly scuppered.

The car was a dull, gold-coloured Mercedes.  The Constantines, in their
own way an opulent-looking pair, complemented it perfectly, but
Meredith reflected that neither she nor Alan would have managed to look
right in such a car, not in a thousand years.

They helped Constantine into the back seat.

"We'll wait with you," Meredith said, worried.

He was sweating now, perhaps because of the heat and the effort of the
short walk from the show ground.  He pulled a handkerchief from his
breast pocket and mopped at his forehead and mouth.

"No, please, don't trouble yourselves..."

"Rachel!"  Meredith whispered urgently.

"Can't you go and find your driver?  We'll wait here."

"Perhaps I ought to stay with him?"  Rachel objected, gesturing
agitatedly.

"He likes me nearby when he's ill."

Constantine's voice rose.

"It can't be anything serious!"  There was a note of bewilderment in
his voice.

One or two people, hurrying past, glanced curiously at the group.

Meredith turned to Rachel.

"Try and find this driver of yours!  You may have a job getting back
into the grounds."

"They'll have to let me!"  Rachel bit her lip.  Despite the confident
assumption that the turnstile rules wouldn't apply to her, her poise
and confidence had slipped away.  She turned and almost ran away down
the pavement.

"I wonder if we can get him a drink of water!"  Markby muttered, moving
back from the car door.

"There's no question of leaving him alone.  I don't like the look of
him at all!  Blast Rachel, we should have gone to the first-aid tent.

They could've called up an ambulance!  Actually, I noticed a car phone
in there.  Perhaps we ought to use it to call up some help now."

"He does look very pale."  Meredith glanced at the nearest house front
"I'll ring the bell and see if I can get the water."

She hurried up the steps to the door.  It was opened by a young woman
of exotic and bored appearance who spoke with a heavy accent,
presumably an aupair.

"Madame is not at 'ome!"  she chanted with a disparaging glance at
Meredith's modest appearance.

"I don't want to see er - madame.  There is a gentleman here who has
been taken rather poorly, ill, sick, unwell..."  Meredith pointed at
the car and the huddled form of Constantine within it.

"Do you understand?"

The girl peered past her.  Obviously the gold Mercedes made the right
impression.  Her initial dubious expression cleared.  She positively
cheered up.

"You want telephone?"  She made dialling motions with her forefinger.

Meredith hesitated.

"Actually, a glass of water."

"Ah, I bring ... You wait."

The door closed.  Meredith descended the steps and rejoined Markby.

"How's he doing?"

"Seems to be dozing off."

Constantine was slumped in the seat corner, his eyes closed.

Markby opened the door and leaned in.  Reemerging and straightening up,
he muttered, "Breathing's fitful.  I'm going to call for an
ambulance.

I don't think he's going to make it back to Whatnot Abbey!"

The door of the house had reopened and the girl was carefully
descending the steps with a glass of water on a small silver tray.

"Please."  She handed it over and, obviously curious, peered into the
car.

"He is asleep?"

"I don't know."  Markby leaned into the car again and plucked at Alex's
sleeve.

"Glass of water!  Constantine, can you hear me?"  He reached in and
took the man's wrist, pushing up the sleeve and pressing his fingers to
the pulse.

Suddenly Constantine opened his eyes.  They focused with difficulty on
the three anxious faces peering in at him.  "W-where is she?"  He
seemed to have some difficulty in forming the words, slurring them
badly.

"Rachel has gone to find your driver!"  Markby said loudly.

"Don't worry, she won't be long!"

Constantine raised a shaking hand to touch his own face which now
appeared to be overcome by some form of rictus.  He made an awkward
beckoning gesture, and Markby leaned forward, the better to hear him.

Constantine made an effort to rally his almost inaudible voice and
force his stiff lips into the shape of words.

"You said you police?"

"Yes, but don't try and speak now, old chap.  Just take it easy!"

Markby urged him.

Constantine rolled his head from side to side in distress, sweating
profusely.

"No, no!"  A trickle of saliva ran from the corner of his mouth.

"L-Listen!  My-my name..  As if realising that he couldn't finish the
sentence he gasped, " Ask her!  " His face became horridly distorted.

His mouth jerked open and his jaw dropped like that of a
ventriloquist's doll.  From the depths of his throat came a horrid
gurgle and his eyes bulged.  He raised both hands, fingers spread out,
and stretched them towards the open door.

The all pair screamed.  The silver tray fell to the pavement with a
crash, the glass shattering, water and glass shards covering the flags
and the dented tray bouncing away to land in the gutter.

Constantine collapsed forward, his head resting on the back of the
driver's seat.

"Is he having a heart attack?"  Meredith gasped.

Markby gripped the slumped form and gently eased Constantine upright so
that he was propped against the back seat.  The bulging eyes were still
fixed and staring, the mouth open.  Markby touched the side of the
man's neck and then hastily fumbled in the sleeve of the collapsed
man's jacket to find the pulse at the wrist again.

After a moment, he let Constantine's arm fall.

"Help me get him out of the car!  If we lie him on the pavement I can
try to get the heart started!"

Constantine was a big man, and even with the unwilling help of the
hysterical aupair, it took the three of them some minutes to manhandle
him free of the car.  It was in vain.  All resuscitation attempts
proved useless.  As the ambulance summoned by Meredith on the car phone
announced its approach with shrill siren, Markby straightened up.

His expression grim, he announced briefly, "He's dead!"

Chapter Three "I still can't take it all in!"  said Meredith.

The train rocked slowly out of Paddington Station.  They had been lucky
to catch it.  It was the last train of the day and only a quick sprint
through the scaffolding, which currently made negotiating the platforms
at Paddington akin to an obstacle course, had enabled them to make
it.

They shared the compartment with only a few home-going theatre
visitors, who huddled in a group at the far end, discussing the show.

The city was dark, sprinkled with winding avenues of street-lamps.

Solid apartment blocks were peppered with uncurtained windows,
affording sudden visions of domestic interiors.  Those glimpses of
ordinary existence a table set for dinner, the nickering screen of a
television set struck Meredith as unnerving images of life itself.

Here today and gone tomorrow.

To witness someone struck down without warning in a city street or, as
Alex had been, in the back seat of his own powerful and expensive car,
affronted an innate sense of decency, she felt.  It seemed as though it
couldn't be right; that Death hadn't played fair.  How could a man like
Alex, secure in his wealth and social position, be removed almost in a
split-second from this world's scene?  Why had he no say in it?  What
game was Fate playing?  Or was reality even more frightening than the
idea of a malicious Fate?  Were we just poor little creatures of clay,
bounced around like a ball on a spinning roulette wheel, to finish
where luck deposited us?

She leaned back and closed her eyes.  It had been a long day.

Rachel had returned with the chauffeur, Martin, in tow, just as Alex's
stretcher-borne body was being loaded into the ambulance.

Understandably, her self-possession had given way to hysteria.

Supported by Meredith's arm, she was soon surrounded by a small crowd
of concerned passers-by.  The aupair, who had been sobbing and wailing
with a full gamut of Mediterranean gestures, saw that no one was
interested in her.

She gathered up the dented silver tray and retired sulkily indoors.

From time to time a beaded curtain at the window shimmered as
observation was kept discreetly from within.  No doubt 'madame', when
she returned, would get a lurid account of it all.

"Alex!"  Rachel screamed.

"Darling, speak to me!"

"He can't!"  exclaimed Meredith.  She felt cruel but the hysterics,
undeniably genuine in essence, were gaining a touch of the
theatrical.

Just as only a short time earlier, Meredith had seen Rachel move
through the crowd in the Grand Marquee as if making some kind of royal
progress, so now in her distress, Rachel still seemed aware of
onlookers and the necessity of putting on a performance.

No one could blame her, but then no one could console her either.  It
also seemed to Meredith that, mixed in with Mrs Constantine's despair,
was a fair amount of anger.  This shouldn't have happened to her and in
such a public place.  One could almost feel she blamed the unfortunate
Constantine for not having waited till they were out of London before
he expired in the back of the car.

Eventually she collapsed completely.  After having been ministered to
by a doctor, she was able to whisper details of her husband's date of
birth and full name, Alexis George Constantine, together with the
telephone number of friends in London.  These were contacted, and duly
arrived expressing anxious sympathy.  They gathered up Rachel and took
her away for care and comfort.

The chauffeur, a nervous, dark-haired young man, was instructed to
drive the Mercedes back to Lynstone, leaving Mrs Constantine in Town
until further notice, and Markby and Meredith at last free to make
their own way home and rehash the day's events at their leisure.

"Meeting with Rachel?  Just one of life's bad jokes."

Markby, in replying to the remark she had made aloud, also contributed
to the inner debate with which Meredith was wrestling.

She opened her eyes again.  He was glaring down the compartment at the
cheerful theatre-goers, as if they, for some obscure reason, were the
cause of the day's upset.

"If I'd seen her first," he went on aggressively, "I'd have got out of
there as fast as I could before she saw me."  There was no earthly way
I could know she was your ex- wife!  " Meredith retorted, stung.

"You don't talk about her!  Oh, the brief reference to her name,
perhaps, but nothing in detail.  I've never asked you anything because
I've always considered your marriage was your own business!  I realise
the divorce left you very bitter '."

"Is it that obvious?"  He sounded genuinely surprised, his blue eyes
filled with amazement and a hint of affront.

"Yes, I mean, no I mean, naturally it did!  Look, mention of Rachel was
clearly a no-go area.  I respected that.  You had certainly never told
me her maiden name!  Rachel's not an uncommon first name and, anyway,
schoolchildren mangle one another's names.  I was always " Merry", for
my sins; she was always

"Ray" It was embarrassing for me too, you know!  I was only at Winstone
House for a couple of years and she wasn't my bosom-chum there, as I
told you!

Just a member of the net ball team!  If I'd had the slightest inkling
that she might be connected with you, of course I'd have avoided her
too!  " He glanced at her and then reached out and squeezed her hand.

"Yes, of course.  I'm sorry.  It was hardly your fault.  I'm not
blaming you, but it did knock me for six, even before poor Constantine
And to think that all this time Rachel's been living an hour away from
Bamford!"  There was a kind of wonder in his voice that he could have
escaped an encounter for so long.

He released her hand.  Even now, thought Meredith, even now we don't
touch, not in public, not in a railway compartment.

"Did you know she'd remarried?"  she asked.

"I had heard.  I was pretty sure he must be wealthy.  She wouldn't make
the same mistake twice!  I didn't know his name or, if I was told, it
didn't register."  He frowned.

"He wanted to tell me something about it.  He urged me to ask Rachel
but I didn't get the chance."

Meredith began slowly, "Actually, when we were introduced, it did
strike me that his name sounded, well, contrived, even if he was of
Greek origin or indeed any other!  Was he Greek?

He didn't somehow look it."

"I've been thinking it over too.  I don't know where he hailed from,
but the name was rather artificial, that's how it seemed to me.  Such a
nicely composite Byzantine one!  It's almost as if he opened some
heavyweight history of the Eastern Empire and ran his finger over one
of those tables of genealogy.  I wonder how long he'd had it and what
his name was before."

"You definitely think it was an alias, or he'd changed it, then?"

"Don't you?  Yes, I'm pretty sure of it and, what's more, he wanted to
tell me so.  Why should he want to do that?"

The train drew in to a station and halted.  A few people got off on to
the deserted platform.  No one got on.  They set off again.

"He knew you were a policeman.  There might be something irregular
about his residence in this country?  Perhaps he was an illegal
alien?

He realised he was dying and wanted to make things easier for Rachel.

So, as you're a policeman, he thought he'd tell you and you'd help.  "
Markby was shaking his head.

"A man like that?  Even if he were here illegally at some time, by now
he'd have got all that sorted out!  He was married to an Englishwoman,
after all.

He must have lived here for years.  His business is here.  No, he'd
have got himself a British passport ages ago, surely?"  He sighed.

"At first he didn't think he was dying but then realised it.  It
suddenly became very important that something to do with his original
name be known.

Pah!  I wish those friends of Rachel's hadn't whisked her away like
that!  I could've asked her!"

"She probably wouldn't have been able to tell you now.

She was distraught.  It was a good thing she had friends to call on.

Otherwise, we'd have been stuck with her!  " That sounded callous.

Meredith added immediately, "I didn't mean--' " I know what you
meant.

Stuck with her is the phrase.  It sounds unchivalrous, and I certainly
wouldn't have left her high and dry in London in the circumstances.

But I'm glad someone else turned up."  Meredith turned her head to
stare out into the blackness.  They had left the city with those
disconcerting glimpses of home life behind them, for which she was
glad.  They rattled along through open countryside.  There was an
arterial road to the right, running alongside the rail track, and the
beams of headlights split the darkness from time to time.  The
theatre-goers had all fallen asleep, heads lolling at different
angles.

Meredith asked awkwardly, "You say you were glad, but when you saw her
with Constantine, you must have felt something, even some jealousy?"

She hadn't meant to say that, but it came out and there it was,
spoken.

He turned his head and stared at her.  She felt herself flush, the tide
of red rising up her neck, suffusing her face, and muttered, "Sorry,
nothing to do with me!"

"Of course it is!"  he said quietly.

"And no, I wasn't jealous.  I felt, if anything, relieved.  I thought,
she's got what she wanted at last!  It quenched the last, tiny
nickering ember of guilt.  I always felt I failed her.  She always made
it clear I had!  When I saw her with Constantine I thought, that's the
man for her!  Not me at all, couldn't ever have been me, whatever I
did!"  He shook his head.

"This is a damn awful business in every way.  But not least because
she's really lost someone in Constantine it will be difficult even for
her to replace.  I'm sorry for her.  I really am.  But that's all!"

They fell silent after that, each occupied with individual thoughts.

Meredith didn't know what Alan was thinking, but after some time, he
stood up and took down his folded coat from the overhead rack.  He sat
down with it on his knees and carefully took a rolled handkerchief from
one of the pockets.

"Perhaps it's an allergy to pollen?"  Meredith suggested, remembering
that he'd taken out the handkerchief in the Grand Marquee.

"What?  Oh, no ... I, ah, I picked this up, off the floor.-."

He unwrapped the handkerchief.  Lying on it was a large thorn.

Meredith leaned forward in surprise.

"Is that the one Alex took from his jacket?  What a wicked looking
thing!

Why did you... ?"  She paused and looked at him accusingly.

"Alex dropped it!  I remember that quite clearly!  So how did you...
?

You dropped your handkerchief over it and picked it up without anyone
noticing!

Am I right?"

"Yes," he said apologetically and then, as she reached out to pick up
the spike, he added quickly, "No!  Don't touch it!"

"I won't drop it!"

"It's not that it's - it's that I want to get a look at it under a
microscope."

Unease gripped Meredith.

"What's wrong?"  She stared down at the sliver of spine.  It was a
vicious two-inch needle, thicker at the base and tapering to a fine
point, though the tip itself looked damaged.

"Nothing, that I know of.  I'm simply curious.  I don't recognise this
type of needle.  It's very strong and not at all pliable.  It looks as
if it came from some desert cactus or something growing in the wild,
not a cultivated type with smaller, weaker spines.  Prickly pear,
maybe?  I wish I knew more about this type of plant."  He folded the
handkerchief over the item and put it back in his pocket.

She was tired and shocked and the tragedy was appearing more and more
as a nuisance upsetting the pattern of her life.  Worse, it seemed to
carry now some obscure threat.  Without understanding quite what she
feared, Meredith said moodily, "Things are bad enough.  Don't make them
any worse!"

Despite arriving home very late after an exhausting day, to say nothing
of having to get up bright and early the following morning, Meredith
couldn't sleep.

It was hardly surprising.  A kind of medieval dan se macabre wound its
way in and out the confines of her mind, but instead of knight, beggar,
lady and friar, it was Constantine, Rachel and Markby who pranced by,
Rachel and Markby hand in hand.  f Meredith saw herself in this line of
dancers, it was tagging on at the end, like the crippled beggar.

Three o'clock in the morning saw her, in her dressing gown, in her back
bedroom, turning out a packing case.

The back bedroom was a glory hole of a place, without any furniture
proper apart from a scruffy wing armchair awaiting re-upholstery.

Meredith had thrown everything in here that she hadn't had time to
unpack on moving in, or hadn't yet got round to fixing, like the
chair.

The packing case contained the accumulated souvenirs of a lifetime,
everything from teenage memorabilia to articles of carved and painted
wood from eastern Europe, pottery from the Mediterranean, music tapes
and books of all kinds.  Somewhere amongst all this, probably at the
bottom of it all.  Meredith, head down in the crate, scrabbled
industriously like a terrier at a fox-hole.  Got it!  She emerged
triumphant, gripping a photograph album, and retired to the wing chair
to examine her find in the inadequate light of the forty-watt bulb
dangling shade less from the ceiling.

It was cold in the back bedroom and the cup of tea she'd made
downstairs and brought up here had cooled un drunk on the floor beside
her.  Oblivious of discomfort, Meredith opened the scuffed black
leather cover and turned the pages with a kind of wonder.

There they all were, protected by interleaved sheets of tissue, her
school friends and contemporaries, the teachers, the open days, the
speech day presentations, the sports events with the visiting parents,
self-consciously proud; even the school cat, an overfed tabby.  The
photographs were laid out in neat rectangles, all labelled in a round,
childish hand.  They were snippets of life preserved, like fossils, in
intimate yet dead detail.

Some names sprang to mind immediately.  But other faces were forgotten
or only half-recalled, the corresponding names lost in the mists of
time.  These were the dinosaurs of one's own evolutionary pattern.

And here was the net ball team, triumphant after some inter-school
challenge, posed around the shield of honour.  There, in the back row,
always at the back because of her height, was Meredith herself.  Here
in the front, grabbing the camera's eye as she held the shield, was
Rachel.  At sixteen, these young girls were no longer children.  They
were young women, and more than aware of the fact.  Most stood
self-consciously before the camera.

Rachel was one of the minority who stared with full confidence at its
all- seeing eye.

There was even a hint of challenge in her look.  The photographer, as
Meredith recalled, had been a fairly young man.  She noted wryly that
even back then she had been taller than all the rest, Rachel
prettier.

Meredith leaned back and wondered whether Alan had kept any photos of
Rachel.

She wondered if he was sleeping soundly at home now or whether, like
her, he was sitting up over some exhumed wedding portrait or summer
snapshot.  She didn't want to think about Alan and Rachel together, but
she couldn't help it.  A marriage, even a failed one which had ended in
acrimony, could never be totally erased from the mind.  It had
happened.  It remained there in the curriculum vitae, like it or not.

She took a last look at the book before closing it up and rising
stiffly from the wing chair.  Funny how these old snapshots threw up
memories, little things which ought to have been forgotten.

Like the way Rachel had always managed to grab the limelight.  And the
way she'd had of telling little white lies.

Chapter Four she didn't see Alan over the weekend.  She didn't ring him
and he didn't ring her.  Meredith wondered wryly who was avoiding
whom.

It was inevitable, if they did meet, that they'd find themselves
discussing Alex and Rachel, worrying at the subject like a couple of
dogs with bones.

Unless they went to the other extreme and refused to mention it at all
and sat there furtively avoiding one another's gaze.  She didn't know
which would be worse.  Presumably neither did Alan, and that was why he
hadn't contacted her.

It wasn't altogether the reason he hadn't phoned, but Meredith didn't
find that out until the following week when she received a summons back
to London, to Scotland Yard, to see a Superintendent Hawkins.

Meredith rang Alan then and asked him, "Who is this Hawkins?"

"Ah, I've been meaning to call you," he returned, which was what people
always said when they hadn't been intending anything of the sort.

"I'll come with you to the Yard.  They they want to see me again
too."

"Again?"  she asked sharply but with sinking heart.

"Yes.  I've - I've been to see them already since we since we were at
Chelsea."

"It's that spike thing, that cactus or prickly pear thorn, isn't it?"

She'd travelled up to London that morning to work as usual, and met
Alan for lunch.  They were due at Scotland Yard at two-thirty.  It
hadn't been a very good or comfortable lunch.  The small restaurant was
crowded out, the staff harassed, service slip-shod, the food
mass-produced, frozen and microwaved on demand.

"Hawkins will tell you about it," he said uneasily.

"Why don't you tell me?"  Meredith invited.

"And don't put me off with some official gobbledegook!  I want to go
and meet this Hawkins forewarned!"

"As if I'd try!"  He grinned at her for the first time since they'd sat
down.

Then his smile faded.

"Yes, all right.  I can't tell you more than I know myself.  I thought
I thought forensics ought to take a look at, the thorn.  I was curious,
that's all!  They found it had been hollowed out very skilfully and the
base of it had been clamped in something.  The topmost tip had broken
off.  What remained bore traces of of a substance."

She stared at him over the plates of half-eaten food and the crumpled
napkins.

"A needle?  It had been made into a hypodermic needle?"  He shrugged
and she demanded, "What about the syringe?"

"No trace of that as far as I know."

"What substance?  What was on it?"

"Look, let them tell you."  He glanced at his watch.  "Hawkins, by the
way, is ... Well, you'll see for yourself."

Alan could be extremely aggravating.  She told him so.

Markby's reluctance to describe the superintendent was soon
explained.

Hawkins could have modelled for lean and hungry Cassius.  He was very
tall and everything about him was narrow: shoulders, face, long nose,
close-set eyes, bony hands and, Meredith suspected, his mind.  He fixed
them both with a look of ill-suppressed rancour.

"Well, he was poisoned, wasn't he?"  he growled as if they'd done it.

"Someone came up behind him and jabbed a syringe full of aconitine into
him.

That thorn had been adapted to use as a needle, as you rightly
suspected, Chief Inspector!"  Hawkins glowered at Markby.

"We haven't recovered the syringe."

Alan Markby stared back at him, startled.

"But surely, that's a herbal poison?  An extraction from some part of
aconite."

Meredith had steeled herself for a shocking revelation, but still
experienced a sense of horror at Hawkins's crisp phrases.

"Poor man!"  she said, remembering how pleasant she'd thought Alex when
they'd met.

"Poor man?"  Hawkins blinked at her.

"You wait till the tabloids get in on this one!"

He was right.  A murder at the Chelsea Flower Show, the obvious wealth
of the victim, and the photogenic looks of the widow, would all combine
to make a journalist's day.  And, of course, the whole thing had taken
place under the eye of a provincial police officer of the rank of chief
inspector.

"I wish there was something I could tell you which would help,"
Meredith offered apologetically.

"I saw him take the thorn from his jacket and drop it.  But I didn't
think well, who would?"

Markby shifted unhappily.

"You did, didn't you, Chief Inspector?"  Hawkins asked unpleasantly.

"You twigged something was wrong, though not, apparently, in time to
stop the attack taking place or get the victim to medical help
immediately!"

"I didn't think a crime had been committed!"  Markby returned
irritably.

He'd obviously refuted this accusation several times already.

"I just didn't recognise the type of thorn .  That was honestly the
main reason I picked it up, to study it more closely later.  It was
botanical interest, pure and simple."

Hawkins found it difficult to imagine anyone interested in stray pieces
of vegetable debris, and the terms 'pure' and 'simple' were not in his
vocabulary.  He contemplated them both as if not quite sure which of
them he'd like taken out and shot first.  With the air of having made
his judgement, he pointed a long, knobbly forefinger at Markby.

"Now, let's run through it again and make sure I've got it right!

You, Chief Inspector, were previously married to the wife of the
victim, Alexis George Constantine.  You, Miss Mitchell--' another jab
of that skeletal finger 'went to school with the lady.  You and the
chief inspector came up to London together on the day in question, and
you all met up at the Chelsea Show.  What you might call quite a family
gathering, wasn't it?  " "It was a coincidence!"  Meredith began to be
nettled by his attitude.

"And I was only at school with her for a couple of years.  She wasn't a
close friend."

Hawkins clearly had as little faith in this coincidence as in anything
else they'd said.  What he saw before him was a variation of
wife-swapping, a sad example of that lack of respect for traditional
values and maintenance of outward respectability which daily made his
job more arduous.

"And you work over at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office," he went on
to Meredith, adding this to the long list of dodgy facts he was
compiling about them.  He raised glittering eyes.

"This fellow Constantine.  He took out British nationality some years
ago.

His wife says he came here from Cyprus.  What do you know about him?"

"Nothing!"  snapped Meredith truthfully.

Hawkins didn't believe her.  He seemed to be toying with the idea of
state secrets being handed over in the folds of a programme at one of
the country's prestige events.

"You're not going suddenly to leave the country?  Push off to somewhere
like Washington or Moscow or Peking where I can't get at you, are
you?"

"No," said Meredith, 'a chance would be a fine thing!  I'm desk-bound
here in London.  And they call it Beijing these days."

"Oh, do they, indeed?"  said Hawkins nastily.

Markby broke in quickly, "Did you check whether that name Constantine
was an alias?  I told you, he seemed anxious to tell me something about
it."

Hawkins moved his narrow, suspicious gaze to the speaker.

"We did, as it happens.  Thank you very much for reminding me.  Chief
Inspector!"  A spasm of irritation crossed Markby's face at being the
recipient of this sarcasm, but he said nothing.

"Mr Constantine," went on Hawkins, 'was previously called Wahid.

Georges Wahid."  He pronounced the first name in two syllables:
"Georgges."

Meredith burst out, "So he had changed it!"

"Yes, years ago.  Before he came to the UK, back in Cyprus.  I don't
know just what he was trying to tell you, Markby, but it beats me how
it can be relevant now, this change of name.  It was twenty-five years
ago and he was already called Constantine when he arrived in this
country.  He has never been known here, as far as we've been able to
establish, as anything else.

You're sure that's what he was saying?  " "He was dying!"  Markby's
irritation burst out.

"He had great difficulty in speaking at all!  He was definitely talking
about the name and he told me to ask his wife."

"The lady," said Hawkins, 'has been asked about that and other things,
whether he had any enemies and so on.  But a doctor's given her some
sedative pills and none of her answers so far has been much use to
us.

Very nasty experience for her, of course.  For God's sake, man, with
all your training and experience, you didn't realise at the time what
had happened?  You say he squawked out and complained of pain!  " "I
heard him," Meredith said.

"I saw he looked distressed and drew his wife's attention to it."

"He thought at first it was an insect bite," Markby repeated for the
sixth time that he could remember, 'and Rach - his wife was talking
about twinges to do with his heart.  He'd had a mild heart attack last
year."

"That's right!"  Meredith corroborated.  / There was a silence. 
Hawkins steepled his fingers, leaned back and glowered at them. 
Meredith was beginning to realise it wasn't necessarily personal. 
Hawkins just looked at people like that.

"Had he, now?  Well, his heart didn't do for him in the end, did it?

What were you doing, for chris sake Chief Inspector, when some villain
came up and plunged a hypo full of poison into his back?"

"Taking a photograph," Markby told him.

"Of my ex- wife, my friend Miss Mitchell here and some flowers."

"Well, it's all going to look bloody odd in the press!"  said
Hawkins.

"I feel mangled," said Meredith when they got out of there at last.

"You do!  How do you think I feel?  I've been made to look a complete
idiot!

Alex was murdered under my nose!"

They'd found a wine bar nearby, housed in a cramped little fragment of
Victorian London, which had survived wedged between tall, modern
blocks.

Inside, the walls were decorated with yellowed Anaglypta, above which
ran a dusty frieze of plaster vine-leaves, grapes and muscular putti.

Over a bottle of red of un recognisable label, they reviewed the
situation without reaching any helpful conclusions.

"You did retrieve the needle and send it to them!"  Meredith made a
robust attempt to be positive about it all.

"That mightn't have been the wisest thing I ever did!"  he muttered.

"It was the only thing you could do."  She leaned across the table to
touch his hand.

"Cheer up!  I know it's not possible to put it out of your mind, but
leave it to Hawkins now.  You're not investigating on this one, after
all!"

"No, thank God, I'm on the other side of the desk!  It's a new and odd
experience!"  He grimaced.

"I don't think Hawkins likes it much, either.  He thinks no one ought
to get himself murdered while a senior police officer is present, even
one off-duty, and I'm inclined to agree with him.  I get the distinct
impression he holds me entirely responsible."

"Of course he doesn't!  You didn't plunge a fatal dose of some herbal
bane into Alex!"

"Do we know Hawkins has ruled that out?  Didn't you think I might be
jealous of Alex?  Jealousy is a powerful motive for murder."

"You were taking that photo when it happened."

"When we suppose it happened," he corrected her.  "Though it does seem
to be the time.  The crowd surged around.  He was jostled.  He
complained of pain.  He plucked the needle from his jacket and..."  He
broke off and frowned into his wine glass.  "And he dropped it because
he didn't think it mattered!"  "Yes, he dropped it."  Alan sipped at
the wine.  There was a silence broken by a shout of laughter from the
other end of the bar.

"And it did matter.  I should have realised straight away that he'd
been the subject of some kind of attack!  A very carefully planned one,
too.  The murderer had obtained a ticket to the show.  You have to
apply a long time ahead."

"No random nutter, then."  Meredith sighed.  "No.  Nor, necessarily,
someone based in London."  She stared at him, her hazel eyes
troubled.

"You think the murderer may have followed him to Chelsea from this
Lynstone place where the Constantines lived?"

"I think it very likely.  It took time to plan and it required a close
knowledge of the Constantines' movements.  The attacker knew they would
be at Chelsea on that afternoon, and might have known that Alex had had
a minor heart attack.  If Alex felt any pain or was ill it would be put
down to that!

The Constantines would be more likely to try and get home and see their
own doctor who knew the case, than seek medical attention there.  Oh,
Hawkins will have worked all this out, too!  I fancy the local police
force down in Lynstone is about to have officers of the Met descend on
them!  " Meredith grasped the wine bottle and poured them both another
glass.

"Well, it won't involve you or me.  You handed over the thorn and we've
both made statements.  Hawkins asked us to keep going over it in our
minds and tell him if we remember anything more.  But we don't have to
do anything more about it than that.  We won't need to see Rachel
again.  Not, at any rate, until it's all been sorted out and if there's
a trial."

"Don't you believe it," said Markby gloomily.

"When Rachel has a problem, everyone gets dragged in.  She'll be in
touch!"

Chapter Five it wasn't Rachel who got in touch first, but someone quite
different.

Meredith arrived at work to find a scrap of paper on her desk with an
unknown name, a phone number and the stark message, "Call back."

Her train had been held up so she was already running half an hour
late.  She slammed down her briefcase, picked up the note and asked,
"What's this?"

Gerald, who shared the office with her, looked up from perusal of a
particularly strident tabloid paper.  The only occasions on which
Gerald arrived carrying The Times was when he'd found a copy abandoned
in his railway compartment.

"His name's Foster and he urgently desires to see you.  All go in your
life these days, isn't it?"  Gerald grinned as he split open a packet
of Opal Fruits.  He had given up smoking.

"Spare me your sense of humour.  I had a lousy journey and I could do
with a quiet day, thanks!"  Meredith stared at the scrap of paper.  It
boded ill.

"Who is he?  Did he say what it was about?"

Gerald, chewing, gave her an old-fashioned look.

"Oh, lor..."  Meredith sighed.

"What on earth do they want?"

"What do you expect?"  he asked cheerfully.

"If you will get yourself mixed up with dubious foreign businessmen."

"Alex wasn't dubious, he wasn't foreign except by birth, he'd been
British for years, and I didn't get mixed up with him.  I met him once,
OK?  Once!"

"Come on, he's got to have been a bit of a crook, surely?"

"Why?"  she demanded irritably.

"To get himself bumped off in that way.  Men of virtue die in their
beds.

Horrible murder!  I read about it in my paper."

"If that's your only source of information, no wonder you're baring off
down the wrong road!  And if that rag is making allegations it can't
back up about Alex, it's liable to get itself sued."

"I was reduced to reading about it in the press," he said plaintively,
'because you've been so tight-lipped about it!  The rest of us lead
humdrum lives and would have appreciated a bit of gory detail to
lighten the day.

Serves you right now if you're going to be grilled by our gallant
security services.  That chap Constantine was probably Public Enemy
Number OneJ' She was picking up the phone as he spoke, and advised him
mildly to shut up.

When she put the receiver down again a little later, Gerald, who had
been ostentatiously immersed in his paper during the call, emerged and
asked, "Want to know your Stars?"  Without waiting for a reply he went
on, "Today you're going to encounter a new influence in your life.

Says so, here.  This Foster will turn out to be a tall, dark handsome
stranger."

"If you go on eating sweets at that rate, you're going to put on even
more weight," she informed Gerald.

"I'm going out for a while yes, to see Foster!  And just keep quiet
about this, will you?  I don't want everyone knowing."

"Appreciate your giving up your time," said Mr Foster politely.

"And obliged to you for coming over here so quickly."

"I thought it best to get it over with," she told him frankly.

He was tall but neither dark nor handsome.  He was an untidy man with
badly trimmed hair who looked as if he'd got up late, had a row with
his wife and had to run for his train.  His jacket was hitched up over
the shoulders, and there was a mysterious dark splodge on his tie.

The office matched the man.  It was tucked away at the top of a flight
of stairs in what at best gave the impression of a Victorian broom
cupboard, complete with Victorian dust.  His desk was wedged against
one wall, with just space for him to get behind it.  Files spilled out
of a open metal cabinet on the facing wall.  The remaining wall space
was taken up by a disused fireplace, filled in with a chip board screen
peppered with holes to allow the air to circulate in the chimney
behind.

He'd fetched them each a cup of coffee.

"Sorry, no bickies!"  he said, sending her general estimation of him
plummeting another few points.

It didn't look very good coffee, either.  It sent up weak spirals of
steam as he shuffled files about on his desk, rattled his in-tray and
finally came up with a much-thumbed folder.

"It's about this bloke Constantine."

"I thought it might be."

"Nasty shock for you, that."  He gazed at her hopefully and with a
suggestion of envy, waiting for details.

Damn it!  she thought crossly.  He's just like Gerald.  They're all of
them like ghouls sniffing round a graveyard.  What is it about
murder?

He actually didn't care a hoot how disagreeable it had been.  She
stared him in the eye and told him, "Yes, it was."

"Know him well?"

"No, not at all.  I was at school with his wife for a very short
time.

But I hadn't seen her for about sixteen years when we1 - bumped into
her at the Chelsea Show."

"Changed much?"  He looked interested.

Meredith reflected.

"No, as a matter of fact, she'd hardly changed at all."  Neither in
appearance nor in character.  Meredith thought.

Wonder if I've changed either?  It gave her a funny feeling.

"Seen anything of her since?"

"Since the murder?  No, nothing.  She lives in a place called Lynstone,
I believe.  I'd never heard of it before, although it's in the
Cotswolds which is where I live, but some miles away."

"Yes."  Foster consulted his file.

"Malefis Abbey is the name of his little place in the country.  Sounds
like something out of horror fiction to me.  He was worth a packet.  I
suppose we can safely assume it's not a three-bed semi on an estate!"

His voice had gained the aggrieved note of a man who believed himself
to be underpaid, unappreciated and overworked.

"Can we get to the point?"  Meredith asked wearily.

"The police can tell you more than I can.  They've got my statement and
my companion's.  They've probably dug out all his business
acquaintances and tracked down other people who were at the show that
afternoon.

Why have I been hauled over here?  " He tossed aside the file, which he
clearly didn't need.

Window-dressing, Meredith thought, and was faintly irritated that he
thought that sort of thing would impress her.

Foster shifted awkwardly in the narrow confines of his chair-wall-desk
seating arrangement.

"I don't know what the police told you about Constantine.  We don't
really know an awful lot."  He stared discontentedly at the dog-eared
file.

Meredith's heart sank as she began to wonder whether Gerald had been
right.

But no, not if Foster knew so little.  If Alex had been a criminal
mastermind, he'd have known a lot more.

"All they told me was he'd arrived here years ago from Cyprus.  He'd
changed his name.  Look, he is, was, all above board, wasn't he?"

"That's what we'd like to know.  We haven't any reason to suppose he
wasn't, I must stress that.  But in view of the way he died..."

Gerald had been thinking along the same tracks.  She ought to have paid
more attention to Gerald.  She'd buy him a Mars bar on the way back to
the office by way of apology.  Meredith said gloomily, "With his boots
on."

Foster looked up, surprised, then grinned.

"Exactly!  We'd like to know why!  He certainly came to England from
Cyprus but, prior to that, he'd arrived in Cyprus from the Lebanon.  He
was born there as Georges Wahid.  He was one of those Lebanese
businessmen who, in the mid- seventies, saw that things weren't going
to get better in his country, and decided to shift his enterprise,
lock, stock and barrel, to safer shores.

He was lucky enough both to get his money out and to be in a line of
business which could be run just as well from somewhere else."

He saw her questioning expression and explained, "He exported
foodstuffs from the eastern Mediterranean area.

Raisins, figs, dates, hazelnuts; all that sort of stuff.  Ingredients
for Middle-Eastern cuisine.  Exotic types of grain.  Boxes of sticky
sweets, Turkish Delight.  Turkey also exports hazelnuts, did you know
that?  " "No.  I did think the name Constantine was rather imperial."

Foster shrugged.

"If you're going to change your moniker, pick a good one!  His decision
to take a new name doesn't have to be fishy.

Hundreds of people do it every year.  He was starting a new life and it
may have seemed logical to him.  After a few years he left Cyprus and
came to Britain.  He began to import rather than export the same
foodstuff s. Exotic cooking was getting fashionable here and it was an
expanding market for his goods.  He made a fortune.  Nothing is known
against him--' Foster looked up.

"I repeat, until this happened, his reputation was unblemished.  He
made generous gifts to charity.

Seven years ago he married a British woman, Rachel Markby as she was at
the time, a divorcee.  But you know that!  " Foster allowed himself
another grin, this time briefly malicious.

"So he took out British nationality," Meredith said, denying him the
reaction he'd hoped for.

"And now someone somewhere has got cold feet."  She allowed herself to
return the malicious smirk.

"But he's dead, so does it matter?  You can't blame him for being
murdered.

That's blaming the victim for the crime."

"Look."  He rested his clasped hands on his desk and leaned forward.

"If it's purely domestic, something he got into here, it's a headache
for the police, not for us.  But if he got murdered because of
something which followed him here from the Middle East... If he was
connected with the wrong people, perhaps helping channel funds back ar^
forth .  You follow?  " "I follow but I still don't know what it's got
to do with me!"

"We thought," Foster became genial, 'you might ge( yourself invited
down to Malefis Abbey and sound out the widow.  Old school chum.

Support her in her hour of need That sort of thing.  See if she knows
anything about her husband's contacts back home, if he kept up any.

Did he get letters from the Lebanon?  Any visitors he didn't want to
talk about?  " Meredith sighed.

"Have you spoken about this to Superintendent Hawkins?"

"Should I?"

"If, and I repeat " if" I go down there and start prying, Hawkins will
think I'm meddling in his inquiries.  The police don't like civilians
doing that.

Or he might thinj; Alan Markby sent me, which is even worse!  They hate
policemen from other manors meddling even more!"

"Shouldn't let that worry you..."  Mr Foster peered at the thick skin
which had formed on his coffee.

"Let the boys in blue sort out their own internal quarrels.  Nothing to
do with you or me.  Look, we're not asking you to do anything which
isn't perfectly straightforward.  Just go down there keep your eyes
open, and let us know if anything strikes you as rum."  He leaned
forward, beaming at her.

"You are, from our point of view, the ideal person.  Throughout your
career you've earned nothing but good reports.  You understand the
security aspect, and you have a personal knowledge of this woman!"

"Your confidence is flattering," Meredith told him.

"But you over-estimate the degree to which Rachel is likely to confide
in me!  I can't stress too much that we were never real friends, only
that our paths crossed.  We were in the net ball team together.  "
Foster burst into a chortle of glee.

"I should like to have seen that!"  He stifled it on meeting an icy
glare, but too late.

"Oh?  I see I should have brought along my colleague's tabloid rag!

You could have read it with your coffee.  As far as going to visit
Rachel is concerned, I don't want to do it for personal reasons!  "
"Chief Inspector Markby, by any chance?  He was married to the lady
once, and now he's a friend of your sT There was innuendo in the
question.  Foster hadn't liked being caught out fantasising about
pubescent girls in short skirts leaping about a net ball court.  He was
getting his own back.  We're all motivated by sex, madam!  said his
tone.

"He wouldn't like my going down there to see Rachel, and it's not
surprising.

You've got to admit it's a bit tacky."

"Take him with you!"

"And make it utterly tacky!"  she snapped.

"Oh, come on," said Foster breezily.

"This is a broad minded day and age!"

There was no use arguing with him.  His skin was as thick as that on
the coffee, and he knew he was making an offer she couldn't refuse.

Meredith capitulated, but not without making her own terms clear.

"I'm not going to pull chestnuts out of the fire for your lot!  But
I'll go along up to a point.  To begin with, it would be better, less
suspicious, if Rachel got in touch with me rather than the other way
round.  There's a good chance she will.  Alan, that's Chief Inspector
Markby, is sure of it.

Mind you, she hasn't yet, but I suggest waiting a week to see if she
does.

If she rings me and suggests I go to see her, I'll go.  How about
that?

I can't say fairer than that."

"Great!"  he said cheerfully.

"I'll see that there's no bother about your taking time off.  It won't
affect your leave entitlement.  We're really much obliged."

"Don't mention it," said Meredith grimly, getting to her feet.

"We must all do our bit for the security of the realm, mustn't we?"

He really didn't like that.

There was nothing she could do now but pray that Rachel didn't ring.

But, of course, she did, plunging into her tale of woe without
preamble.

"Meredith?  You know, don't you, that they're saying poor Alex was
murdered?

Can you believe it?  He hadn't an enemy in the world!

Everyone thought so highly of him!  My head is in a complete mess.  I'm
having so much trouble just taking the dreadful idea in!  " The tearful
voice rose, paused, spluttered and then continued more briskly, "I've
just got back here to Lynstone from staying with friends in London.

They were so good to me and kept the press away.

But I couldn't impose on them any longer so now I'm here on my own and
it's just awful!  The house is so empty!  I see Alex everywhere and the
newspapers keep ringing me up.  Some woman journalist even came all the
way down here to try and interview me yesterday.  She just walked up to
the front door and rang the bell!  Can you believe it?  " Meredith made
appropriate sympathetic remarks.

"I sent her away, of course, but she lurked round the place with a
photographer pal until eventually the gardener chased the pair of them
off!  I shall go mad here on my own!  You've got to come down for a
while, Merry.  Keep me company and help me keep these press people at
bay.  I can't cope!  You have simply no idea what it's like!  "
Meredith tried, pace the shade of Mr Foster, to get out of it.

"How about your family?"

"I haven't got any.  Well, I've got a sister but she's hopeless,
obsessed with her kids, and they live up in the wilds of Scotland.

The only other relations I've got are a couple of grim old aunts and
they never liked Alex anyway because he was a foreigner.  I kept
telling them he was British.  I even shoved his passport under their
noses.  But they just sniffed.  I bet they've cut me out of their
wills, too, the old besoms!  " Rachel's voice sank from high-pitched
and irritated to low-pitched and pleading.

"You're one of my oldest friends.  You can't let me down!"

That really was rich.  Between the ages of sixteen or so and
thirty-something, they hadn't set eyes on one another.  But Rachel had
already persuaded herself that they were old chums.

"You've got to come!"  she repeated, sounding more minatory and more
like Rachel.  The pleading tone hadn't really rung true.

"All right, Rachel," Meredith said with a sigh.  And all right, Mr
Foster, she added silently.

"I'll make arrangements to come down to Lynstone as soon as I can."

"Oh good, I knew you wouldn't let me down."  Rachel sounded so relieved
that a pinprick of conscience assailed Meredith.

"Hope I can be of help."

"You will, just by being here.  All I've got for company down here are
those bloody birds!"  She rang off.

Birds?  What birds?  Perhaps Meredith had misheard.  Anyway, she had
other things to occupy her mind.  Such as how she was to break the news
to Alan.

While she was working on that one, she rang Mr Foster and let him know
the good news.  He, at least, was pleased.

If she hadn't felt so ill-at-ease when she met Alan the next night for
a drink at The Bunch of Grapes in Bamford, their local, she might have
noticed that Alan was also looking shifty.

"Rachel called me," she said, sipping at her half-pint of cider and
wondering how on earth she was going to break the news of her proposed
visit.

"I know.  She called me afterwards."

"Oh, I see."  She hadn't thought that Rachel might do it for her, but
it made sense.  If Rachel had rung her, she was bound to have rung
Alan, too.  She wished she knew how Alan felt about hearing his former
wife's voice on the phone, but he wasn't saying.

"I understand you're going down to Lynstone to stay with her for a few
days."

His tone was bland.

"Yes.  Sorry.  Couldn't get out of it."  She debated whether to tell
him about Foster, but decided against it.  The less Alan got drawn in,
the better.

"She is upset.  Nearly hysterical, in fact.  I gather the press have
been bothering her.  Hawkins said they'd latch on to this.  It's
genuinely been a dreadful shock for her.  I'm going on Friday and I'll
stay till, oh, perhaps Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week.  I
dare say you don't like it much."

"What can I say, other than that you knew her before I did!"  He gave a
wry grin.

"Actually, she's invited me down there for Sunday lunch while you're
staying.

Rachel was never put off by quibbles like other people's
embarrassment!

" Meredith stared at him, knowing her dismay was writ large on her face
and unable to do anything about it.  "You're going there too?

You've accepted this invitation?"

He was moving his pint glass round on the table-top so that it left a
wet, circular trail.

"It's difficult to refuse Rachel as you've found out.  Besides, she has
had a bad shock and I suppose, if she's really got no one else to turn
to..."

"I see."  Meredith's voice sounded very small and cold.

Markby looked up and pushed back a quiff of fair hair which had fallen
over his forehead.  He looked both cross and miserable.

"Look, I don't like it, either!  I don't want to go, any more than I
suppose you do.  I dislike it even more than you, because my
involvement with Rachel is something I thought was over and done
with.

But as I told you, when Rachel has a problem, everyone gets drawn
in."

"Blast Constantine!"  said Meredith suddenly.

"God rest his soul and all the rest of it.  But if he must get himself
murdered, why couldn't he get croaked down at Lynstone?  Then it would
have been a local affair."

"Yes," said Markby, picking up his glass.

"I fancy that's the impression someone wanted to avoid."  He stared at
her over the rim with some concern.

"Keep your eyes peeled while you're down there.  I strongly suspect
that somewhere in Lynstone resides a murderer."

Now, had Mr Foster thought of that?

Chapter Six 'what are you doing, Nevil?  "

Mrs James stood by the kitchen door and addressed her son who was
rummaging in a drawer of the dresser.

He turned and held up what looked like a tiny pair of pliers.

"I told Rachel I'd go over to Malefis and do some claw-clipping."

Before his mother could reply, he went on quickly, "Don't say it, Ma!

Not now.

Not now this awful thing has happened to Rachel.  She's in a terrible
state.

We should all do everything we can to help and support her!  " "A
little claw-clipping oughtn't to be beyond her!"  Mrs James said in a
brittle tone.

"Take her mind off it.  Give her something to do.

That's her trouble, nothing to do!  " "Be fair, Ma!  It was Alex's job
and you can't expect--' He broke off and then said obstinately, "You
can't expect her to learn how to cope without him overnight."

"Why not?"  Mrs James wanted to stop herself but she couldn't.

"I had to, when your father did a runner!"

"Alex hasn't left her, he's dead!"

Nevil pushed the clippers into his pocket.

"Don't start again, Ma, please!  I've heard it all so often that it's
like some old film flickering away non-stop!  All it needs is " Hearts
and Flowers" in the background!  I don't remember my father and I don't
care about him one way or the other.  I suppose, when I was a little
kid, I'd have liked to have a father around, but he wasn't, and I'm not
a kid now!  I never needed him and frankly, I don't need you if you're
going to make my life a blasted misery!

You're obsessed with him, do you realise that?  He took off twenty-five
years ago, but in your mind he's never left you.

You've brooded over him ever since.  Well, I realise he ruined your
life, but I'm not going to let the fact that he ditched you ruin
mine!

Sometimes I even have some sympathy for the poor blighter!  " He was
shouting, something he seldom did.  His mother stared at him, appalled,
aghast at the violent reaction she'd prompted.

Seeing her dismayed expression, the bewilderment and fear on her
weather-beaten face, her mouth hanging open, he asked more mildly and
with a wry grimace, "Didn't he like the look of me?"

"He liked the look of his secretary!"  Mutinously she added, "Peroxided
bimbo with crooked legs.  Case of rickets, I shouldn't be surprised."

After a moment they both began to laugh.

"Look, I'm sorry, Ma," said Nevil.

"I don't like rows.  But you do push me, you know."

"Oh, bother it all!"  said Mrs James, pulling out a handkerchief and
rubbing her eyes.

"I know I go on about it, Nevil, but it's because the world's dealt me
a few low blows and I don't have any illusions about it.  Life's a
bugger."

"And I don't know anything about life?"

"Frankly, no."  She bit her lip and waited for him to say that was her
fault too because she'd kept him with her here all these years.

But he didn't.  Instead he walked past her, giving her arm a pat as he
did, and saying, "Don't worry about it, Ma.  Everything is going to be
all right."

"That'll be the day!"  she muttered.  She went to the back porch to
watch him walk briskly away towards the chimneys of Malefis Abbey,
knowing, as many mothers had before her, that there was nothing she
could do about it.

Gillian was returning with the dogs which she'd been walking.  Nevil
stopped and exchanged a word with her before going on.  Gillian hauled
the dogs towards the day pens.

The number and type of animal in the kennels and cattery varied with
the coming and going of their various canine and feline guests.  The
dogs in residence this week were two beagles, the corgi which had
turned up after all, and a 'mixed breed' of the type best described as
a 'mutt'.  Gillian was managing them all competently.  The beagles were
well trained and behaved impeccably.  The corgi, new to the routine,
disliked being walked, or even just walking, and had to be chivvied
along.  The mutt, given a chance, tied all four of them into knots.

But Gillian didn't give him a chance.

"Now that girl," Mrs James was thinking aloud again, 'can cope.  Got to
with those parents.  A pity Nevil .  but he wouldn't."  She sighed.

Just when you thought a situation was bad enough, it always got
worse.

Rachel Constantine married had caused enough trouble.  But nothing
compared to what she'd cause now she was an attractive widow.  Mrs
James was beginning to realise that it would have been better to have
Nevil attached to almost anyone else, rather than free to fall into
Rachel's coils.  She had kept him too isolated.

She should have urged him to go out more often, into town, make friends
of his own age.  It was a bit late to do anything about it now.  Not
that it was in Molly James's nature ever to give up.

"If I could only find someone else for Nevil!"  Mrs James muttered.

"Someone intelligent, with character and some looks.  But we haven't
got anyone like that in Lynstone!"

Meredith, later on that day, followed the sign which read "Lynstone.

Single Track.  Caution', and turned off along a narrow lane.

Climbing a gentle gradient, she had a fine view to either side of
rolling hillsides which later would be blue with linseed flowers but
now were a monotone dull green.  Then the lane plunged down into a
little vale formed by grassy banks, so that she was below the level of
the fields and the effect was of driving through a cutting.  After that
it began to rise again, but much more steeply and lined with trees
which blocked out the light.  Meredith carried on towards the brow of
the hill, confident of finding the village.

There were signs of habitation.  Driveways wound off at intervals
between the trees and high, hedged banks, leading to large, detached
houses.  She passed a signboard reading

"Lynstone Boarding Kennels and Cattery'.  The board had been
hand-painted, rather inexpertly, with the outlines of a dog and a
cat.

The cat looked fairly realistic but the dog looked like a large rodent
with a canine tail.

After that came a notice requesting in uneven capitals:

PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY.  CONCEALED ENTRANCE.  LYNSTONE

house hotel.  Sure enough, she passed a wide turning and glimpsed,
behind some trees, a gloomy mansion.

After it came more driveways leading to more large houses, and then the
brow of the hill at last.  She crested it and suddenly she was out of
Lynstone and jolting rapidly downhill towards open farmland.

Somehow, she'd missed the place.

Meredith turned round in the gateway to a field and drove back again.

In one side of Lynstone and out the other.  But where was it?  It was
like trying to locate Brigadoon.  It was a phantom village.  It didn't
exist.  It was just a name on the map.

It hadn't a church or a pub, unless you counted Lynstone House Hotel.

It had no cottages, scruffy village shop, or school.  No bus-stop, no
pavements, no fluttering posters advertising jumble sales.  There was
absolutely nothing at all to suggest a heart to the place.  It just
meandered over various side tracks and driveways, a sort of bolt-hole
for rich people who wanted to live in the country and enjoy their
privacy.  The only sign that anyone ever did any work around here was
the existence of the kennels and cattery place.  There weren't any
people, not a living soul to be seen.

It would have been helpful of Rachel to have given some directions.

"You can't miss it!"  was all she'd said when Meredith had rung up to
confirm her visit.  As it was, Meredith was now forced to turn into the
drive of Lynstone House Hotel to seek advice.

She got out, slammed the car door, and surveyed the silent front of the
building.  It looked as if it were a Victorian gentleman's residence
fallen on hard times.  She rang at the outer glass door of a lobby and,
when nothing happened, opened it and walked in, through the lobby and
the original front door and into the house itself.

She was in a tiled hall.  It was empty and deathly quiet.  A wide
staircase wound upwards to regions unseen.  Sporting prints hung on the
walls, and a moth-eaten selection of stuffed birds regarded her from
glass cases.  She wasn't really surprised to see yet another painted
notice.  A carved wooden hand pointed silently to the bar.

Meredith guessed that this and all the others around Lynstone had been
painted by the same artist.  His brush was recognisable and his aim,
she began to suspect, was to fill the place with wooden notices in lieu
of people.

Meredith followed the sinister pointing finger.  She found herself in
what had probably been a drawing room.  The bar was installed in the
corner and behind it hung what must have been one of the house's
original mirrors.  It was an ornate affair in a broad, carved frame;
probably quite valuable.

Ramshackle but comfortable armchairs were dotted about and a few
magazines lay on a coffee table.

Meredith was surveying it all, hands in pockets, when she heard
approaching voices.  Both were female.  One, clipped, high-pitched and
middle-class, said, "Well, I'm worried sick!"

The other voice was a country one, lower in pitch and reassuring.

"Now don't get yourself into a state, Molly.  It will all turn out all
right."

"But if this London copper is coming down here--' At this point the
speakers debouched into the room through a half-open door in the wall
beside the bar.

First was a tall, big-boned woman in cord trousers and a grubby
body-warmer.

The other, following close behind, was amply built and motherly and
wore a blue cardigan.  She held a tea-towel like a badge of office.

Both stared at Meredith and the plump woman asked, "Can I help you?"

"I did ring," Meredith said.

"I need some directions.  I hope you don't mind my bothering you."

"Oh, lost, are you?"  said the woman pleasantly.  She didn't sound
surprised or even really curious.  People were always getting lost
looking for Lynstone.

"I'm afraid so.  I'm looking for Malefis Abbey."

There was a subtle but unmistakable change in the atmosphere.  The
other woman, who had been squinting thoughtfully at Meredith, gave a
loud, "Harrumph!"

The plump woman cast her a warning look.

"Go back up the hill, dear, past the cattery, and you'll see a lane
turning off, tucked away between the hedges.  Windmill Hill, it's
called.  You just drive up there a couple of hundred yards and you'll
see the abbey gates.  You can't miss them, they've got big stone
pineapples on the top.  It's not one, of course."

"Not one?"  Meredith asked, confused.

"Not an abbey.  Never was.  Stupid name they gave the place.  Not like
Windmill Hill there really was an old flour mill up there once.  No one
maintained it and it fell down towards the end of the last war.

The old folk round here talk about it."

"I see."  Meredith hesitated, realising that she was expected to supply
some information in return.

"I've come to stay with Mrs Constantine."

"Oh, yes."  The plump woman didn't sound as if she approved of Mrs
Constantine.  But decency won out.

"We were all so sorry to hear about that.  Quite a nasty shock,
really.

I've never been to London myself, and after all I read and see on the
telly, don't think I want to!  He - Mr. Constantine was a nice man,
very politely spoken.  He used to come in here sometimes of a lunchtime
for a drink.  Only ever had the one, a Scotch.  He'd chat to a couple
of people and then go on home."  Meredith wondered where the 'couple of
people' came from.  Where on earth did the hotel get its clientele?

"You run this hotel?"  she asked.

The woman chuckled.

"Lord, bless you, no!  I help out.  I'm Mavis Tyrrell.  Mr Troughton
runs it.

But he's not here right now.  He's gone to see the wine merchant."

Despite all outward signs, it seemed that Lynstone House Hotel was a
thriving business.  Meredith had to ask the obvious.

"It's, er, very quiet round here.  Do you get much passing trade?"

"No so much passing, not through Lynstone.  But we get a lot of
bookings for reunions and conferences, and from people who want to take
a holiday in a nice, quiet, comfortable place.  And then the locals
there are more of them than you'd think they do support the bar.  Well,
there's no decent pub, you see.  Not unless you count The Fox, and
that's not what you'd call much of a place.  Besides, they'd have to
drive there, and people don't like to take their cars nowadays, do
they?  Not with the drink-and- driving laws.  So they walk along here
and they all know one another to chat to.  It's nice for them.  That's
why poor Mr Constantine came, I dare say."  Belatedly she added, "This
is Mrs James.  She's got the cattery."

She made it sound like an unfortunate affliction.

"Please to meet you!"  said Mrs James grimly.

"You're not a relative, are you?"

"Of Mrs Constantine?  No.  We as a matter of fact, I went to school
with her."

"Oh?"  That was filed away to be mulled over.  Mrs James pursed her
thin lips.  It occurred to Meredith that when Mavis had expressed her
regret at Alex's death, Mrs James had said nothing.  She spoke now.

"Thought, when I saw you standing there, you might be a policewoman,
detective.  You're tall and you look the capable sort.  Mavis here--'
she waved a hand towards the plump woman 'she's expecting the law.

Just got a room ready for him, haven't you, Mavis?  " "From London!"

said Mavis.

"His name wouldn't be Hawkins, would it?"  Meredith asked
apprehensively.

"That's right!"  Mavis brightened.

"A superintendent.  Of course, you'll know all about the murder, being
Mrs Constantine's friend.  How it happened and that.  At a flower
show!

Can you believe it?"

"Er- yes.  Mrs Constantine never came with her husband to have a drink
here?"

Meredith glanced round her.

"Once or twice."  Something like a smile crossed the woman's broad
face.

"Don't think drinking here was quite her style!"

To ask any further questions might rouse suspicions, but Meredith made
a mental note to come back at some time and have a drink in the bar.

Mavis seemed the chatty sort, and the others might be prepared to talk
about Constantine.  Mrs James was more taciturn, but something about
the way she was looking at Meredith suggested that she, too, was
curious and might be willing to exchange information on a barter
basis.

She was studying Meredith hard just now, and Meredith wondered what she
was thinking.

She glanced at the bar and had a brief mental image of Alex, sitting
there with his glass of Scotch.  In the course of

Constantine was a nice man, very politely spoken.  He used to come in
here sometimes of a lunchtime for a drink.  Only ever had the one, a
Scotch.  He'd chat to a couple of people and then go on home.  "
Meredith wondered where the 'couple of people' came from.  Where on
earth did the hotel get its clientele?

"You run this hotel?"  she asked.

The woman chuckled.

"Lord, bless you, no!  I help out.  I'm Mavis Tyrrell.  Mr Troughton
runs it.

But he's not here right now.  He's gone to see the wine merchant."

Despite all outward signs, it seemed that Lynstone House Hotel was a
thriving business.  Meredith had to ask the obvious.

"It's, er, very quiet round here.  Do you get much passing trade?"

"No so much passing, not through Lynstone.  But we get a lot of
bookings for reunions and conferences, and from people who want to take
a holiday in a nice, quiet, comfortable place.  And then the locals
there are more of them than you'd think they do support the bar.  Well,
there's no decent pub, you see.  Not unless you count The Fox, and
that's not what you'd call much of a place.  Besides, they'd have to
drive there, and people don't like to take their cars nowadays, do
they?  Not with the drink-and- driving laws.  So they walk along here
and they all know one another to chat to.  It's nice for them.  That's
why poor Mr Constantine came, I dare say."  Belatedly she added, "This
is Mrs James.  She's got the cattery."

She made it sound like an unfortunate affliction.

"Please to meet you!"  said Mrs James grimly.

"You're not a relative, are you?"

"Of Mrs Constantine?  No.  We as a matter of fact, I went to school
with her."

"Oh?"  That was filed away to be mulled over.  Mrs James pursed her
thin lips.  It occurred to Meredith that when Mavis had expressed her
regret at Alex's death, Mrs James had said nothing.  She spoke now.

"Thought, when I saw you standing there, you might be a policewoman,
detective.  You're tall and you look the capable sort.  Mavis here--'
she waved a hand towards the plump woman 'she's expecting the law.

Just got a room ready for him, haven't you, Mavis?  " "From London!"

said Mavis.

"His name wouldn't be Hawkins, would it?"  Meredith asked
apprehensively.

"That's right!"  Mavis brightened.

"A superintendent.  Of course, you'll know all about the murder, being
Mrs Constantine's friend.  How it happened and that.  At a flower
show!

Can you believe it?"

"Er - yes.  Mrs Constantine never came with her husband to have a drink
here?"  Meredith glanced round her.

"Once or twice."  Something like a smile crossed the woman's broad
face.

"Don't think drinking here was quite her style!"

To ask any further questions might rouse suspicions, but Meredith made
a mental note to come back at some time and have a drink in the bar.

Mavis seemed the chatty sort, and the others might be prepared to talk
about Constantine.  Mrs James was more taciturn, but something about
the way she was looking at Meredith suggested that she, too, was
curious and might be willing to exchange information on a barter
basis.

She was studying Meredith hard just now, and Meredith wondered what she
was thinking.

She glanced at the bar and had a brief mental image of Alex, sitting
there with his glass of Scotch.  In the course of their very brief
acquaintance he had seemed to her, as he had to Mavis, a nice man.  She
began to wonder if he'd been a lonely one.

After that it was easy to find Malefis Abbey.  As Rachel and Mavis had
both said, one really couldn't miss it.  The entrance lay just a short
way up Windmill Hill, on the left, framed by two thick square gate
posts shrouded in shrubbery.  Meredith looked for the pineapples and
spotted them, barely visible through the overgrown branches.

Smothered in a coat of moss, each was crudely carved and stood in a
sort of egg-cup.  As far as Meredith could judge, they were about a
foot high.  She knew they were a traditional sign of hospitality and
welcome, and wondered whether they would prove to be appropriate
here.

The house was an example of Victorian Gothic rampant.  Built in dark,
brownish-orange stone, perhaps as a rival to Lynstone House, the
architect had obviously been ordered to create an abbey or what
romantic imagination of the time had thought an abbey ought to be.

The windows were pointed in early Gothic style.  Along the eaves
waterspouts protruded at intervals through the heads of stone dragons,
eagles, and men with faces so grotesque that they were perhaps meant to
be devils.  Above the door, un harmoniously Tudor in design, a griffin
grasped a shield on which the coat of arms had been eroded by
weather.

The heraldic beast leered down at the main approach to the house, as if
it knew something the visitor didn't and mightn't want to.

In contrast the well-kept gardens seemed quite civilised.  A young man
was working with wheelbarrow and hoe at a flowerbed by the main door.

He stopped as Meredith drove up and came to open the car door.

"Good morning.  Miss Mitchell!  You had a good trip here?"  His voice
was slightly husky and attractively French.

"It's Martin, isn't it?"  she said, identifying the gardener
cum-chauffeur.

He looked a lot happier here manicuring the spring-planted bed than he
had the last time she'd seen him, being bombarded with instructions by
an hysterical Rachel.

"Yes, mademoiselle.  Mrs Pascoe, the housekeeper, has gone to the
town.

But Mrs Constantine is waiting for you.  The door is open.  She said
you must go in and she will be in the conservatory.  It's at the back
of the house.  I will bring your bags."

Meredith hesitated.

"How is Mrs Constantine?"  Martin avoided her gaze.

"She is well but, I don't know the English phrase, en deuil."

"In mourning," Meredith supplied.  "Ah yes," he said thoughtfully.

"In mourning."  Once again she found herself entering a large,
seemingly empty house.  But here it was possible to detect Rachel's
hand at once in the comfort of the furnishings, the delicate pastel
shades which lightened what would otherwise have been a gloomy interior
and the rare, carefully chosen and displayed antiques.  Nor was this
house a silent one.  For as Meredith opened her mouth to call out and
announce her arrival, she heard laughter.

The sound was so unexpected, a disembodied light ripple which echoed
off the vaulted ceiling, that Meredith experienced a distinct sense of
shock.  It had come from a region to the rear, the conservatory, from
what Martin had said.

Obviously Rachel wasn't alone in there.  It seemed odd Martin hadn't
mentioned there was already a visitor.

Meredith hadn't seen another car parked on the drive, so perhaps that
other person had walked here.  Was it possible that one of Lynstone's
elusive inhabitants had surfaced to pay a call of condolence?

She made her way towards the source of the sound.  As she neared, she
heard another, almost as unexpected.  It was a vast twittering, as if
numerous birds' nests had been disturbed.  Meredith, racked with
curiosity, passed across a dining room, stepped through some glass
doors and gave a gasp of astonishment.

She was in a huge Victorian conservatory, a towering fantasy of wrought
iron and glass, some of it coloured bright red and blue.  The
temperature was almost tropical, thanks to thick heating pipes which
ran around the walls, a few inches above the terra cotta tiled
floors.

But most of the plants it must once have contained had been removed.

The sole survivor was an orange tree which made the air heavy with the
cloying scent of its blossom.  It was enclosed in a huge, wire aviary
which took up about half the available space.

The enclosure was filled with canaries, so many it was impossible to
count them.  They fluttered all over their cage, and in and out of the
twisted branches of the orange tree.  There were yellow canaries, and
some which were almost pure white.  Stripy ones, too, which Meredith
hadn't seen before.  The noise they made, now she was so close, was
almost deafening, echoing off the glass walls and trapped by the arched
roof on its wrought-iron girders.

Two people stood before the aviary.  One, a young man, was holding a
canary.

He had reached up to profile the little creature against the light.

One of its claws was extended and gripped between his thumb and
forefinger.  In the other hand he held a small pair of clippers.

The other person was Rachel.  She was wearing dark colours but the
garments could hardly be described as mourning.  Tight black pants were
matched with a long imperial purple silk jersey tunic, nipped in at the
waist with a wide, gold-buckled, black suede belt.  Her honey-blonde
hair was tied back with a black satin bow at the nape of her neck.  Her
arms were folded and she rested one high-heeled shoe slightly behind
the other foot, hips twisted, in a casual and provocative stance.  She
turned smiling as Meredith gave her little cry of surprise and,
unfolding her arms, held them out in welcome.

Her green eyes were sparkling.

"Hullo, Merry dear!  Has all this given you a shock?  People are always
surprised."  She indicated the aviary.  "Poor Alex's hobby!"

Meredith turned her gaze to the young man holding the canary.  He was
fidgeting awkwardly.  Had Martin, in not mentioning this visitor,
simply chosen to be discreet?

Rachel, at any rate, wasn't embarrassed.  She patted his arm, a gesture
which resulted in his face turning bright red.

"This is Nevil," she said.

"He's come to clip the birds' claws.  He's been such a support since
Alex died.  I don't know how I'd have managed without him!"

There was an awkward silence during which Meredith and Nevil eyed one
another.  Then Meredith held out her hand.

"Meredith Mitchell.  Rachel and I were at school together.  I expect
she's told you."

Nevil muttered something which might have been either yes or no, then
gestured with the trapped canary in one hand and the clippers in the
other.

"I'm sorry I can't shake hands."  He accompanied the words with a
nervous smile.

"Don't worry about it."  He was, Meredith thought, quite a good-looking
young man, even though his features were a little weak.

Others might see that trait as a mark of sensitivity, of course.  In
either case, he presented an incongruous sight just at the moment, with
the canary's head poking out of his fist.

"What are you doing?"  she asked curiously.

"Clipping claws."  Nevil now began to speak hurriedly, as if her
question had depressed some release button.  "It's easy.  All you have
to do is hold the claw up to the light, like this."  He held the bird
up, one extended claw pinched between his finger and thumb.  His own
hands were long and thin, rather claw-like themselves.

"You see, in the light it's almost transparent, and you can see the
vein running down the foot.  It's important not to cut that."  .

"I can't do it," Rachel said loudly.

"I don't actually like holding the creatures and I couldn't touch their
feet, all scaly, yuk!"  She stared thoughtfully at the aviary.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with them all."

"I don't mind coming over to keep an eye--' Nevil broke off and
reddened, casting Meredith a shifty look.

"Look, Rachel, I'd better go.  I'll come back another time."

He opened the aviary door and thrust the bird inside.  It fluttered
free of his hand and up into the furthermost recesses of the orange
tree.  There was something very odd, Meredith thought, about a caged
tree.  But Malefis was proving a very odd house.

"It's nice to meet you, Miss Mitchell... Excuse me!"

He hurried out, not through the house, Meredith saw, but out of a door
in the conservatory leading into the garden.  She and Rachel both
watched him walk quickly across the lawn until he was lost to sight
behind some shrubs.

Rachel sighed.

"I know what you're thinking.  Merry."

"Do you?"  Meredith eyed her.

"My dear..."  Rachel slipped her arm through that of her guest.

"Come and have some coffee and I'll confess all.  Not, I hasten to tell
you, that there's anything to confess!  But I don't want you to get the
wrong idea.  Enough people around here have that."

Chapter Seven 'there don't seem to be very many people around here,"
Meredith observed mildly when they were settled in a small, comfortable
sitting room.

Rachel poured the coffee she had fetched from the kitchen.

"The real village is down the road, a couple of miles or so.  It's
called Church Lynstone.  We're just Lynstone here."

"I obviously didn't drive on far enough."

"Oh, there's nothing to see," Rachel said carelessly.

"Nice old church, a pub which isn't so nice, a few cottages and
Naseby's Garage.  George Naseby sells newspapers, milk, and a few other
groceries-as a sideline.  Horrible sliced bread, tins of corned beef
and processed peas, that sort of thing.  Nothing you'd actually want!

That's the only shop the village has.  He calls it Naseby's
Mini-Mart!

" Rachel grinned.

Meredith reflected that when Rachel said 'you' she was indicating a
social divide.  The villagers, presumably, did want tins of bully beef
and peas.

Rachel delivered a bombshell.

"Actually, Alex's funeral is going to be at that church, on Tuesday."

"What?  You didn't say!"  Meredith exclaimed.

"Well, I asked and they said they'd release the body.

They've done the post mortem and everything.  Strictly speaking, Alex
wasn't Church of England.  He was something exotic: not Orthodox, M mar
mer--' "Maronite?"

"Yes, that's it!  But the rector didn't mind when I asked.  So I got on
to the undertakers in Chipping Norton.  There seemed no point in
waiting.  I want to get it over with."  Obstinacy touched her voice.

"I feel in a sort of limbo.  I did love him, you know."  She looked up
and met Meredith's gaze defiantly.

"I did!  And I want to mourn him, but I can't!  I can't explain it to
you.  I know, if I can attend a funeral, go through the rites, see him
buried, I'll be able to organise myself, think about the future.  It's
not being able to do anything!"

"I just wished you'd warned me, Rachel," Meredith said in genuine
apology.

For once, she felt Mrs Constantine was speaking from the heart.

"Of course you want to bury him and be able to mourn.  I -1 haven't got
anything black with me."

Nor was she mentally prepared for this funeral.  In her mind's eye she
kept seeing Alex, lying on his back on the pavement beside his opulent
gold car, street dirt soiling the expensive cloth of his Savile Row
suit, Alan crouched over him in a doomed attempt to restart a heart
which no longer sent the life blood coursing through the veins.  Just
so long as Rachel didn't expect her to view Alex in his coffin.  She
just wouldn't be able to cope with Alex laid out, his head on a satin
pillow.  She'd seen autopsied bodies before, and although undertakers
did their best, there was always that tell-tale horizontal bump running
temple to temple across the forehead which their powders and grease
paints couldn't quite disguise.  Meredith shivered and felt slightly
sick.

The question of Alex's religion raised more questions, however.  How
much did Rachel know about him?  What had he told her?  The truth?

What did she know of his Lebanese origins?  Or of his previous name?

What reason, if any, had he given her for changing it?

The mention of clothes rang an immediate bell with Rachel, who seized
on Meredith's last remark.

"Not being in black doesn't matter, not nowadays.  It will only be a
small affair.  I don't think any of Alex's business friends will be
coming down from London.  I did sort of put the word round, family
only.  Only, of course, neither Alex nor I have any family.  My sister
won't come from Scotland."

That seemed to suggest that there hadn't been letters or visitors from
the Middle East.  But they had strayed from the original point of this
conversation.  Meredith decided to be blunt.

"What was it you wanted to tell me about Nevil?"

Rachel grimaced and put down her cup.

"He is a sweetie but beginning to be just a tiny bit of a nuisance.

I'm rather afraid he thinks he's in love with me."  She sounded
complacent, as if this were to be expected.

"It didn't matter when Alex when Alex was here.  Alex knew, of
course.

But he didn't mind because he knew I wasn't going to be stupid.  Only
now Alex is gone and Nevil seems to think he's got to look after me!"

Rachel sighed.

"I'll be honest, Merry.  It's one reason why I wanted you here.  So
that Nevil can see I'm not alone and without support with the funeral
coming up.

Otherwise, you see, he might offer to escort me, and that would really
be out of the question!  But I don't want to hurt his feelings."

It was unlikely Nevil's feelings were going to remain unhurt for much
longer.

"Where does he live?  Around here or in Church Lynstone?"

"Here, at the cattery.  He's old Molly James's son and heir."

"I've met Mrs James!"  Rachel was looking surprised, so Meredith
hastened to explain.

"So you've already met the terrible twosome, Molly James and Mavis
Tyrrell!"

Rachel said.

"They may seem an unlikely pair of cronies at first glance, but between
them, believe me, they've got Lynstone covered!  Nothing, but nothing,
happens here which those two old bats don't know about!"

That might be useful, thought Meredith privately.

"I take it you don't like them?"

"I don't mind them.  They don't like me!  Correction.  Molly hates my
guts.

Because of dear Nevil, of course.  You'd think he was about twelve
years old the way she talks about him.  She's got it all wrong.

I don't want her precious boy.  I think she ought to let him go, but
that's another matter.  I mean, what life does he have, shut up there
with her and a lot of dogs and cats?  She probably thinks he might
marry that slab-faced girl who mucks out for them."

"You know, do you, that Superintendent Hawkins is expected at the
hotel?"

Meredith said, determinedly dragging the conversation back to the
problems of the immediate future.

For the first time Rachel looked disconcerted.

"Wretched man!  He did tell me he'd be coming down here!  What on earth
for?

Whoever killed poor Alex is roaming around London!"

"Perhaps he thinks not.  He'll be looking for a motive."  She watched
Rachel to see how this went down.

Badly.

"He won't find one in Lynstone," Rachel snapped.  "Unless, of course,
I'm supposed to have managed to kill my husband in full view of
everyone while having my picture taken by Alan!

Even Hawkins isn't going to suggest that, I hope."

"No, but he's going to ask questions.  Look, Rachel, you'd better sort
out this flirtation of yours with Nevil James, because it might be
misconstrued."

"Oh, rubbish!"  Nevertheless Rachel looked frightened.  But then her
face lit up.

"Alan's coming down!"  she said suddenly.

"He's coming here to lunch on Sunday.  He can stay on for the funeral
and talk to Hawkins and explain it all."

It did seem, as Alan had said, that when Rachel had a problem, everyone
got drawn in.

That afternoon, while Rachel was writing letters, Meredith drove down
to Church Lynstone.

It lay at the bottom of the hill where the land flattened out, probably
dictating the site of the village.

Naseby's Garage and Mini-Mart was on the right, just beyond an ancient
stone hostelry.  The creaking sign announced this to be The Fox, and
showed a faded painting of a fox apparently stuck in a snowdrift.

Opposite the pub was a row of old cottages with uneven roofs and
sagging oak lintels.  Beyond them lay the churchyard and the church
itself.

Meredith parked and opened the gate to the churchyard.  It seemed
fairly well kept.  A notice in the church porch announced that it was
part of the joint parishes of St Olave, Church Lynstone, and St Mary,
Lower Wenbury.  The rector resided at Lower Wenbury and his telephone
number was given.  Perhaps for this reason, the church was locked.

Meredith circumnavigated it, climbing over sunken graves with tipsy
headstones.  Lichen had obscured many of the names, but such dates as
could be deciphered were venerable, several of them eighteenth
century.

In addition to inscriptions, most showed carved cherubs or skulls.

One, the oldest of them, bore an uncomfortably direct message when
traced out by Meredith's finger.

As I once was, So now are ye, As I am now, So shall ye bee, Thy life a
flour, Thy brethe a blast.

Even the idiosyncracy of its spelling couldn't detract from that stark
message.

A stone seat, or coffin rest, inset in the outer chancel wall, enabled
her to climb up and peer through a window.

Clinging to the eroded stone of the sill with her fingertips, Meredith
observed that the interior was clean but not particularly
interesting.

Any stained glass had long been removed or destroyed, and the windows
were all glazed with plain leaded lights.  There was a wooden gallery
above the west door which was probably eighteenth century.  Together
with the headstones, it suggested that two hundred years ago this had
been a thriving and relatively prosperous community.  Now it simply
slumbered half- forgotten, like so many other ancient villages.

Meredith climbed down, dusted her hands, returned to her car and drove
over to Naseby's Garage to refill the tank.  It was self-service at the
pumps and to pay one went into the Mini-Mart.

Entering, Meredith looked round with interest to see what it sold,
apart from those items listed disparagingly by Rachel.

Actually, Rachel had been pretty accurate.  A sociologist could have
gained quite a lot of information about the lifestyles of the people in
the cottages from the items George Naseby deemed it essential to
stock.

A special high tea, for example, might consist of tinned salmon,
followed by peaches in syrup eaten with tinned Nestle cream, and a
boxed variety of iced Bakewell tart.  There was also a cold cabinet
containing tubs of spreading margarine, sausages and vacuum-packed
bacon.  There was tea and coffee, sugar and flour.

Meredith supposed that if you were a villager and couldn't get out to
shop in a bigger place, you might just survive on what the Mini-Mart
had to offer.

George Naseby was providing a valuable service.

The till, which served both for the petrol pumps and the untidy little
shop, was presided over by a young girl with fashionably tangled hair,
a bad skin, and wearing a gold stud in one nostril.  She leaned on the
intervening counter over an opened copy of some magazine devoted to the
interests of teenage girls, and watched as Meredith walked round the
shelves.  Feeling impelled to buy something, Meredith collected a pint
of milk and a bar of chocolate from the confectionery stand.  She paid
for these and the fuel, noticing as she did that on the counter was
propped a handwritten poster announcing: For All Sign-Painting and
Decorative Poker-work Contact W. Hardy at Spinner's Cottage opposite
The Fox.

Beneath this, by way of sample, was painted a squirrel and The Laurels'
in Gothic script, disregarding the fact that squirrels were not usually
associated with laurel bushes.

"Collecting the vouchers?"  asked the damsel with the nose-stud.

"What are they?"  Meredith tore her gaze from the poster.

"George's idea.  We give you vouchers for every pound spent and then
you can use them in the shop."

Mr Naseby was apparently more of a businessman than the scope of his
emporium suggested.  Meredith declined the vouchers.

"Visiting?"  asked the girl.  Sitting here all day must be boring, and
any newcomer was of interest.

"I've come to stay with a friend, up the hill at Lynstone."

"Nice houses, those," said the girl enviously, casting a critical eye
over Meredith.

"You perhaps know Mrs Constantine?"  Meredith probed.  "I expect she
buys petrol here sometimes."

"She don't come.  Her husband used to sometimes.  Mostly the chauffeur
brings the Mere down."  Unexpectedly the girl turned a dusky pink.

Martin had obviously made a conquest here.  There probably weren't many
young men of any description in the village and, even if there had
been, Martin would be more interesting.  The local youths would stand
no chance.

The girl leaned her arms on her counter and grew confidential.

"That was a horrible murder!"

"Mr Constantine's?  Yes, a dreadful business!"

"He was a nice man," the girl said.

"He was always polite.  You can tell."

Meredith drove back to Malefis Abbey reflecting that she had yet to
hear a bad word about the late Alex Constantine.  People around here
mightn't like his wife very much, but they had liked Alex.  Yet someone
had wanted to kill him.  She wondered whether Alex had always been 'a
nice man'.

"Dad?"  Gillian asked.

She stood in the doorway of his 'studio'.  It was really a garden shed,
but they called it Mr Hardy's studio because this was where he did his
painting and craft-work.  He had been responsible for nearly all the
signs around Lynstone and Church Lynstone, and now he was working on
what he called 'a big project'.  It was a much-needed new hanging sign
for the The Fox.

"How's it going?"  she asked, moving towards him.

He sat back in his wheelchair and surveyed the wooden board propped up
before him.

"Coming along," he said.

He had decided to break with the existing illustration and paint a
vixen and cubs.  Privately Gillian felt he was being a little
ambitious.  The fox-cubs looked like kittens and the vixen hovered over
them as if about to eat them.

The whole picture, far from being endearing, was rather grim.

"Mum wonders if you're getting chilly out here.  Do you want me to
light the calor-gas heater?"

"When I'm cold," said Mr Hardy, "I'll ring the bell."

He pointed with his paintbrush to a piece of string above his head.

It ran across the ceiling, out through a hole above the door, across
the back yard and into the kitchen where it was attached to a small
brass dinner bell hanging from a hook.

Gillian took a seat by him and watched him work for a while.

"Dad, can I ask you something?"

"You can," said Mr Hardy.

"It's about Nevil.  I don't know what to do."

"And why," asked her father, 'have you to do anything?  " She
reddened.

"He he needs help."

"Oh, aye, he needs that all right!"  muttered Mr Hardy ominously.

"You do like Nevil, don't you?"  A note of surprised doubt entered her
voice.

Mr Hardy put down the brush and spun his chair to face his daughter.

"No."

"Why not?"  Gillian's plain face became bewildered and upset.

"You listen to me, my girl!"  said Mr Hardy.

"Don't get ideas in your head about Nevil James.  You're wasting your
time!"

For a moment she appeared near to tears.

"I probably am.  He doesn't fancy me.  He might, if it weren't for her\
He's besotted with her!"

Mr Hardy said unexpectedly and in a harsh voice, "You'd like to leave
here, wouldn't you?  Go and get yourself a place in Chippy, perhaps.

Get a job there.  Get a boyfriend and a lot of new clothes and have a
good time."

"No, Dad," she said wearily.

"I like my job at the cattery."

"No, you don't.  You stay there because of that fellow.  You don't stay
there because of your mum and me!  But it's like I say, you're wasting
your time."

"That isn't fair!  I wouldn't leave you and Mum!"  Anger replaced her
distress.  She pushed back her lank hair and went on firmly, "Look,
about Nevil, even if he isn't interested in me, he oughtn't to keep
dropping in at Malefis now Rachel's a widow.  He ought to realise the
situation's changed.  People will talk.  After all, she's free now and
- oh Dad!  You can surely see why I'm so worried!"

Mr Hardy gave a rasping chuckle.

"She isn't going to marry young Nevil, if that's what's getting you so
agitated!"

"She is going to get him into trouble!"

"Other way round, possibly."

"Don't be crude, Dad!"  she said angrily.

"There's a policeman coming down from London.  He's taken a room at the
hotel.  He's called Superintendent Hawkins.  He's going to ask
questions and he might think Nevil was jealous of Alex and well, did
something."

"Took the train to London and killed him?  Wouldn't have the nerve!"

"Of course it's stupid.  But if he keeps going over to Malefis, now
Alex is dead, the police might start thinking well all sorts of
things!"

Her distress was so evident that he was forced into offering a brusque
comfort.

"Listen, my girl.  It's up to young James to break loose from that
woman.  If he doesn't want to, neither you nor anyone else can do
anything about it!"

"He won't break loose!  She's got him fascinated!  She's the one who's
got to let him go!  She must see that!"

"You can't do anything about it.  Gillie, so stop worrying your head!

Go and fetch me out a cup of tea."  He picked up his brush.

She got up and went out.  A cup of tea, she thought wearily as she
crossed the yard, was the prescribed panacea for all emotional distress
in their house.  Depressed?  Put the kettle on.  Misunderstood?

Heart-broken?  Brew up another pot.  Sometimes Gillian felt like Samson
chained between the pillars of the heathen temple.  She wanted to push
out with all the force at her disposal and bring the walls of their
claustrophobic household crashing down, smothering all and
everything.

Just before she reached the back door, Gillian glanced down the narrow
alley by the side of the cottage, from which the road could be seen.  A
strange car was just passing with a young woman at the wheel.

She was heading up the hill towards Lynstone.  Gillian wondered if it
was the woman Molly had told her about, the one who had come to stay
with Rachel Constantine.

Rachel again.  At all indeed at any costs, Nevil had to be saved from
Rachel.

Aloud, Gillian said,

"Well, I'm going to do something about it, so there!"

What's more, there was a way.

Chapter Eight on the Friday morning, as Meredith drove to Lynstone,
Alan Markby had been seated in his sister's office at a respected local
legal firm, nursing a cup of coffee and doing his best to explain.

His best wasn't good enough.

"I think you're crackers!"  said Laura crisply.

"Incidentally, that isn't just my opinion as your relative, but as your
legal adviser.

Yours was one of the most acrimonious divorce cases I've had the
misfortune to handle.  I never want to deal with Rachel again.  I
certainly never want another letter from Rachel's solicitors!  She put
us all thoroughly through the hoop, and now, for heaven's sake, you're
about to let her do it to you again!  She means to use you, Alan.  "
"That's not how it is," he said.

"Hah!  So tell me how it is!"  Laura leaned her elbows on a document
box containing someone's last will and testament.  Her long blonde hair
was escaping in tendrils from the neat French pleat.  Her brother
thought as he had done so many times, that no one looked less like a
successful legal eagle.

In fact, Laura's model looks were her secret weapon.  In court, the
sight of her sitting demurely in her little black suit, long legs
crossed and stiletto-heeled foot swinging, had distracted more judges,
magistrates, jurors and opposing counsels than could be counted.

The funny thing, Markby thought now, was that women didn't resent
her.

One might have expected the opposite to be true.

But most women who had spoken to him of Laura seemed to appreciate that
here was one of their own who had beaten men at their own game.

"She's been widowed, and in very unfortunate circumstances, so in all
charity we ought to make an effort," Markby said sententiously.

Laura said something very rude.

"And then, there's Meredith..."

"Yes, what about Meredith?  How's she going to feel on Sunday at
lunchtime when you turn up at this place, Malefis Abbey?  The name of
it, for crying out loud!  The three of you sitting there like something
out of a French farce, passing the roast spuds and gravy and every
other remark a double-entendre!"

"I don't think any of us will find it funny," he protested.

"Depends on your sense of humour.  Someone ought to make a film of it
all.  I can see the posters now: The Wife, The Policeman and His
Girlfriend."

"Rachel isn't my wife!  She was Alex's wife.  Also, don't, please, call
Meredith my girlfriend.  She doesn't like it.  I'm not keen on the term
either.  We're friends, all right?"

"All wrong.  But that's not the point at issue.  Stay away from Malefis
Abbey, Alan!"

"I can't."  Markby put down his cup and rose to his feet.  "I'm not
going down there because of Rachel.  I'm going because of Meredith.

There's a murderer running around down there.  I feel it in my bones.

I've put in for leave.  As long as Meredith is going to be staying in
Lynstone, I'm going to be there with her.

" "At Malefis?  Alan!"

"No, Laura, not at Malefis.  Give me credit for some discretion!

There's a hotel nearby, I understand.  The Lynstone House Hotel, it's
called.

I've reserved a room there from Sunday night."  Laura screwed up her
nose.

"Very well.  Go down there and be bodyguard if you must.  But leave
investigating to that man Hawkins."

I shall do so, naturally.  It's not my case and any interference on my
part would be highly improper."  His sister received this pompous reply
with due scepticism.

"Just stick to that!"  She hesitated.

"You will be careful, Alan?  I don't just mean watch out for Rachel's
tricks or don't step on Hawkins's toes.  If you're right about the
murderer, this Lynstone could be a very dangerous place to be."

Markby strolled back to his desk from his sister's offices through the
busy streets of the little town.  He liked walking through Bamford.  He
felt at home here.  People knew him and several greeted him.  This
feeling of being a member of the community was in some way helpful in
his work and in others a problem.

He had, not so very long ago, refused to consider promotion to
superintendent because it would have entailed moving away from this
place he liked so much; and, of course, away from Meredith now that she
had bought herself a house here.

But the ball had been hit back into his court with a vengeance in the
wake of the proposed 'rationalisation' of the police force.

His rank, chief inspector, was due to disappear.  He was faced now with
a stark choice.  He could accept the promotion and remain a policeman
and have to be prepared to move if required.  Or he could gracefully
accept a probably financially attractive early retirement.

That would mean finding some other occupation.  He didn't want another
occupation.  He liked the one he'd got, thank you.

Markby turned into the market square and headed for the chemist's shop
there.

In his pocket he carried the finished reel of film begun at Chelsea.

He ought to have brought it in to be developed before now, even if only
halfused, but a sense of thrift had meant he'd doggedly snapped away
until he'd reached the last number.  He'd get it developed and send
relevant shots to Hawkins.  There was unlikely to be anything on them
to interest the superintendent, but one never knew.

The photographic counter at the chemist's was presided over by Miss
Macdonald.  She had migrated southwards, until she'd reached the
Cotswolds, from some distant northerly point of the British Isles.

This had occurred some thirty years earlier, and no one had ever dared
to inquire the reason.  In all that time, she had neither lost her
accent nor sacrificed her ways to slip-shod English usage.  Miss
Macdonald remained surrounded by an invisible force- field created by
her Sabbatarian background and its notions of propriety.  Markby, who
had known her all the time he'd been in Bamford, knew better than to
attempt any familiarity.  She awaited him behind her counter, short
hair neatly waved in regimented undulations, nylon overall pristine,
spectacles gleaming.

"Good morning, Miss Macdonald," said Markby.

"How are you today?"

As when approaching an imperial Chinese mandarin, a ritual had to be
observed.  One had always to begin with a greeting.  Customers who
rashly approached her counter and simply asked for what they wanted got
very short shrift.

"Good morning.  Chief Inspector Markby," returned Miss Macdonald.

"I'm fine, thank you."

o far, so good.  Markby reflected that, had Miss Macdonald been
spluttering out her last breath, clinging to the counter for support,
she would still have replied, "Fine, thank you!"  This was partly
because to admit to any weakness was self-indulgence, and partly
because she would have considered it no business of the inquirer to
know the reason for her distress.

"And what may I do for you?"  she asked, as if he might be going to ask
for some service totally unconnected with her shop.

He produced the reel of film.

"Can I have these processed?  The one-hour service if possible."

But now the ritual went wrong.  Miss Macdonald looked embarrassed and
her reply was tinged with sorrow.

"Och, Chief Inspector!  It's no' possible!  The machine is broken and
the technician not able to come out today.  Tomorrow, being the
Saturday, he'll not be working!"

Miss Macdonald's voice was prim with disapproval.  She would not have
pulled a weed from her garden on a Sunday, but did not believe in
shirking labour on any other day.

"The film will have to be sent away.  It will take a week.  Will that
be all right?"

This put Markby in a difficult situation.  There were other places in
town where he could get the film processed, but Miss Macdonald wouldn't
take it kindly if he took his business elsewhere, having already taken
up some of her time.  She was waiting for his reply.

He chose discretion before valour.

"Yes, of course!  But I shall be out of town next week.  Sergeant
Pearce will pick it up for me."

"I'll make a note of that, Chief Inspector."  She did so on a piece of
paper.

He must impress on Pearce he should collect the developed photographs
in person.  Miss Macdonald would certainly refuse to hand them over to
any un authorised person.  Also, he must phone Malefis this evening and
let them know he had taken a room at the hotel.

Markby had steeled himself to speak to Rachel when he rang Malefis
Abbey.  He felt the knot in his stomach unravel when Meredith answered,
and that told him in no uncertain way how much the prospect of seeing
Rachel affected his nerves.  Laura had been right to warn him.  He
tried to concentrate on the thought of seeing Meredith again, which was
nice.  She hadn't been too keen on his going to Lynstone even for one
day and he wasn't sure how she'd take the news he meant to stay on.  He
was relieved, if surprised, to hear her say: "I don't mind, honestly.

If you'd asked me yesterday before I left I'd have said differently,
but now I'm here, I admit I'll be glad to see you and to have you
around the place next week."

"What's happened?"  he asked sharply.

"Nothing, yet.  Everyone liked Alex and regrets his passing.  Otherwise
the place is just dead, if that's not an unfortunate choice of word!

The funeral, by the way, is on Tuesday, so if you intend staying on at
the hotel, you'll need to bring your black tie."  He groaned and she
went on, "And that's not the worst of it.  Hawkins is on his way
down.

He's staying at the hotel, too.  You'll be company for one another."

He ought to have inquired about Hawkins's movements!  Too late now to
alter his own plans.  At least, if Pearce mailed the developed reel to
the hotel, he'd be able to hand it over to Hawkins on the spot.

Meredith left the phone and rejoined Rachel, who was sitting in front
of the television, punching moodily at the buttons on the remote
control.  As Meredith came in, she switched the set off and threw down
the control.

"What did Alan say?  He is coming on Sunday, isn't he?"

"Yes ... and he's staying on, at the hotel."

Rachel's full lips turned up in a glowing smile.

"I knew he wouldn't let me down!  Dear Alan!"

It was all too much to bear in silence.  Meredith plonked herself down
in an armchair and snarled, "He wasn't " dear Alan" when you ditched
him!"

"That was ages ago and I didn't ditch him!  We parted amicably."

"Not as I've heard it!"

"Well, you haven't heard my side of it, have you?"  Rachel retorted
sharply.

That was true.  Meredith had to admit it.

"Sorry, Ray.  Not my business, anyway."

Rachel hunched slim shoulders.

"I suppose it is, in a way.  I mean, you and Alan are an item now, or
whatever you care to call it."

"Not an item!  Honestly, Ray..."

"Well, whatever!  Our marriage was a mistake.  We both realised it.  He
wasn't happy.  I wasn't happy.  We called it a day.  We weren't married
in a church, you know.  It was a register office do.  My family, you
see, didn't approve.  Well, they were right to be doubtful, but at the
time I just thought they were being obstinate.  Oh, they liked Alan and
he came of very decent family.  But they knew me.  They knew I wouldn't
last out.  But it made it much easier, when we split up, only having
been married in a civil ceremony.  Not from the legal point of view, I
mean, but from the church point of view.  Not that I'm religious, but
the family appreciated the difference."

"If your family was so set against it, and you decided so soon it was a
mistake, what made you so sure at first?"  Meredith couldn't quell her
curiosity.

"I mean, you and Alex were obviously so well matched.

But Alex and Alan couldn't have been more unalike."  Rachel ran her
hands through her honey-blonde hair.  "Why did I marry Alan?

Perhaps because the family said I shouldn't!  I was very young, only
nineteen.  One is naturally rebellious at that age."

She hesitated.

"Besides, my family didn't hide its opinion that I had no staying
power.  I wanted to prove them wrong.  Don't misunderstand me, I really
did think Alan rather wonderful!  He was different.  I hadn't met
anyone quite like him before.  All the boyfriends I'd had until then
had come out of the same mould.

"Hooray Henrys" , my father called them.  They'd all been fun, but none
of them had any really serious purpose in life.  Of course, they all
wanted to be successful in business and make a lot of money.  But Alan
didn't.  He wanted something else out of life.  He was older than the
others and he had this thing about justice, law and order, caring for
the community and all the rest of it.  It seemed very noble."  Rachel
sighed.

"Actually, it was very boring.  The family was right: I was totally the
wrong wife for him.  He worked all sorts of odd hours.

It was hopeless.  I couldn't arrange any dinner parties or accept any
invitations because I never knew whether he'd be able to keep them.

He mixed with very peculiar people and he didn't like my friends.  He
didn't share their idea of fun.  He was very rude to them on several
occasions.

When he did have some free time, he just wanted to go out and dig up
his garden."  Despite herself, Meredith had to smile.

"All right, Ray, you've made your point!"

"But I never lost my affection for him," Rachel said earnestly, leaning
forward and putting a hand on Meredith's arm.

"I've always been terribly fond of Alan."

Meredith didn't find this assertion particularly reassuring.

It had been a long and tiring day.  Meredith made her excuses after
dinner and went up to her room.  She pulled the curtains aside and
stared out of the window.

It was twilight but promised to be a clear, bright night.  The moon
already showed as a pale disc on the darkening but cloudless sky.

Meredith hadn't switched on the light in the room behind her, so that
it was easier to see out into the gardens.

Her room was in the front of the house and she had an uninterrupted
view straight down the main drive to the gate.  She fancied she could
just make out the shapes of the pineapples.  The birds had all gone to
roost.  The smothering quiet of the countryside lay over everything.

No traffic noise.  No lights, except very faintly through the trees to
the right, possibly from the hotel.

Then, as she leaned on the windowsill, there was a movement by the main
gate.

Meredith frowned.  It might only have been trembling of the trees and
surrounding shadows.  But no, there it was again.

A shape detached itself from the gate post and moved out on to the
drive.  A woman stood there, looking towards the house.  She wore, as
far as it was possible to tell, a dark dress with long sleeves.  There
was a white splash at her throat which might be a large white collar.

She had a mass of long dark hair, but poor light made it impossible to
make out any detail of her face.

Meredith held her breath and was careful not to move or draw attention
to her own presence.  The woman moved a little nearer down the drive,
as if to see the house better.  Then she turned away, walked back to
the gate posts and was lost to view.  She must have gone out into the
lane beyond.

Meredith bit her lip thoughtfully.  The woman journalist, perhaps, of
whom Rachel had spoken?  Having failed to get an interview and been
thrown off the premises by Martin, she might have returned to prowl
around the place when she would be less likely to be spotted.  But
quite what she hoped to achieve by this was difficult to guess.  There
had been no sign of a camera.  But it was too dark for anything but
flash, and that wasn't what the paper had wanted.  They wanted to get
into the house.  It was disturbing to think that the journalist might
have returned.  It was someone to watch out for; she would have to warn
Rachel in the morning to be on her guard.

Of course, itneedn'the the journalist.  Perhaps only someone taking a
late-night constitutional stroll.  Someone from the hotel?  Malefis was
an unusual house and would attract a visitor's attention.

Meredith retreated into the room and pulled the curtains across.

Saturday tomorrow, and Alan wouldn't arrive till Sunday lunchtime.

"Roll on Sunday," she muttered to herself as she climbed into bed and,
not long afterwards, fell asleep.

Molly James wasn't asleep.  She never slept well, hadn't done so for
years, not since her marriage ended.  Lack of sleep then hadn't been
for grief at the loss of a man she'd no longer loved, but had simply
been the result of the long hours she'd worked to bring up her child
and earn a living.  Getting the kennels going had been hard toil
indeed, and there'd been no Gillian to help out in those early days.

She'd done the lot herself.

"Every blasted thing!"  she murmured aloud to herself in the
darkness.

"Up at crack of dawn, cleaning, feeding, walking.  Never to bed before
midnight after doing the paperwork.  Don't know how I managed it.

Needs must when the devil drives, I suppose!  " In those far-off days
as they now seemed she'd often been ready to drop with tiredness.  But
gradually her physical strength had built up, and the need for long
hours of sleep had lessened.  She'd become accustomed to her spartan
way of life, and the harsh physical discipline it imposed on her.

But at least when she got to sleep, she'd sleep like a top.

Recently, though, even when she'd worked hard all day, she lay awake,
restless.  Her limbs ached but her mind buzzed with activity as she
wrestled with her problems.

Principally one problem, of course: that of Nevil and Rachel.  The
worst nights, when she hardly dozed off before dawn, always followed
quarrels with her son.  That evening had seen a particularly bad clash
when they'd howled at one another across the table.

Nevil had returned from Malefis earlier in the day in a dreadful mood,
taciturn and scowling.  First attempts to ask the cause had resulted in
his biting her head off.  At last, in the evening, the reason had come
out into the open.  Rachel had a house-guest.  An old school friend so
she'd told Nevil.

Unable to understand why Nevil should be so upset by this, Molly had
finally shouted, "What on earth does it matter?  You've got to expect
it.  People do turn up when someone's bereaved.  Some of 'em people you
haven't seen in years!  They don't stay around.  They hang about for a
bit offering help and sympathy, then they push off back where they came
from.  Everyone's life has to go on."

Unwisely, she'd added, "It's not as though it's a man who's turned
up.

Then you'd have to worry!"

Nevil hadn't liked that one bit.

"You don't understand, Ma!  It doesn't matter who it is!  Rachel
doesn't need this friend.  She's got me to help her.  Now how can I go
over there while this other woman's sitting around, staring at me?"

The notion that Nevil's visits to Malefis might be curtailed had
appeared an excellent one to Molly, and she hadn't been able to hide
her satisfaction.

That had really done it.

"Go on, gloat!"  Nevil had yelled and stormed out.

That had been after their main meal, around eight-forty five.  He
hadn't come back.  Molly had fiddled about in the kitchen for as long
as possible, washing pots and cleaning up far more thoroughly than she
was wont to do.

From time to time, she'd gone to the door and peered out into the
night, as if by doing so she might conjure up Nevil's returning form.

The moonlit grounds had remained empty, except for the shuddering and
whispering of the trees and an occasional bark from the kennels.

Around ten, she'd gone out with a torch to check on the animals, and
then walked a little way down the narrow, tree-lined lane towards
Malefis.

Flashing the beam from side to side brought into stark relief the
pattern of twisted branches and twigs, and occasionally disturbed a
roosting bird which fluttered in a sleepy way.  Otherwise, she hadn't
encountered another living thing.  The loneliness of that solitary
walk, through alternate patches of shadow and bleached moonlight, to
the rustling of night noises, made her feel more depressed.  But it
hadn't been until she'd returned home that she'd begun to feel
frightened for the first time.

Suppose he didn't come back?  That was her greatest fear, the one which
lurked always at the back of her mind.  Suppose one day they had a
really blazing row and he packed his things and left for good?  But
they hadn't had a humdinger of a row like that, she consoled herself.

A pretty violent quarrel, but not like that.  Not the sort of quarrel
which resulted in a permanent rift, in someone leaving.  Anyway, he
hadn't taken any of his clothes.

But people didn't always leave after blazing rows.  They often left
after insignificant tiffs over some trivial matter which proved the
proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.  Her marriage had ended
like that.  All the big fights had been fought.  She and her husband
hadn't rowed any more, just sniped and squabbled or sat in frozen
silence.  Then one day, at the end of a week which had passed without
any particular disagreement at all, he'd come home and announced there
was 'someone else'.  He left with two suitcases and a water-colour
entitled "Fishing Boats in a Cornish Harbour'.

He'd bought it and she'd never liked it.  She could see him now, in her
mind's eye, walking to his car with a suitcase in either hand and the
framed picture tucked under his arm.

She hadn't pleaded, or wept, or been angry.  She'd just watched, then
gone indoors and made the baby, Nevil, his tea.  He'd grizzled a bit,
sensing something was wrong.  She'd sat with him in her arms all
evening, knowing that from now on, he was all she'd ever have.  Until
the day he left, too.

Tonight, alone in the house without Nevil, she'd watched television
until midnight.  A political discussion first about things which
neither interested her nor seemed to her of any importance, followed by
an equally boring film.

All the time she'd been listening for his footstep, for the click of
the kitchen door.  Finally she'd downed a couple of sizeable whiskies
and gone on to bed, largely because she was afraid that if Nevil came
home and found her waiting up for him, he'd be angry again and accuse
her of treating him like a child.

Molly turned restlessly.

"Where on earth is the young blighter?"  she demanded aloud, thumping
the pillows angrily.

"Where can he have got to?  Even that pub down at Church Lynstone has
chucked out by now!"

Nor could he be with her, with Rachel, because Rachel had a
house-guest.  So where?  With whom?

When I get up in the morning, she told herself next, he'll be home.

We'll have breakfast together and whatever I do, I mustn't - must not
ask him where he was or why he was so late!  I must respect the fact
that he's a grown man.

But she didn't really think of Nevil as a grown man.  She never had and
never would.  He was just Nevil .  and acting extremely
inconsiderately.

Mrs James, immediately forgetting her good resolution, promised
vengefully to the darkened room, "Just wait till he gets home!"

"The police are coming down from London," said Nevil.  "So what?"  The
careless, softly spoken words were distorted because the speaker was
leaning towards the mirror, carefully applying lipstick.  "They1 don't
know.  They'll snoop."

"So let them!  You've nothing to worry about."  "They might hear gossip
about Rachel and and me."  "You shouldn't have got yourself into such a
stupid situation, should you?"

"Look!"  Nevil pleaded.

"I thought you'd be able to help!

I've had a bloody awful row with my mother.  She doesn't understand and
I can't explain it to her!  Nothing's going right; not for me,
anyhow!

" A sigh.

"Is that what you came here to tell me?  Just to talk about something
that hasn't happened yet and probably won't?  She isn't going to tell
the police about you.  She's the virtuous widow.  As for the gossip,
all you have to do is deny it.  There!"  The answer was unsatisfactory
to Nevil, who sank his chin in his hands and muttered, "It's not just
that.  It's the whole thing.  I thought when he died that well, now he
was dead, she'd be glad of my help and support.  But she only seems to
want me to look after those canaries of Alex's!  I thought you'd have
some idea what I should do."

"You know yourself what you should do.  You just don't do it.  What
difference would it make if I repeated it?"  was the cross retort.

"I love Rachel!"

"No, you don't!"  The other turned from the mirror.

"Pass me a tissue.

She's just the only good-looking woman you've ever known.  Well, that
is."

"All right," said Nevil with a tired smile, passing over the box of
tissues and taking the hint.

"Present company excepted!"

"You know..  The lipstick-stained tissue was discarded.  Skirts rustled
and settled on the bed beside him.  A faint aroma of perfume filled the
air.

"I could prove it.  I could make you forget all about Rachel
Constantine in ten minutes!"

Nevil turned his head away.

"I don't want to forget about her."

"You see?  It's fixed in your mind.  But that's all it is, Nevil
dear.

A notion in your head.  The time will come when you'll lose interest in
her.

Believe me."  A hand closed on his with gentle pressure.

"You will."

Nevil's head snapped round again.

"You know, in your own way, you're as bad as Ma!  You don't want to
listen, to understand how necessary Rachel is to me!  You just where
are you going?"

The ferocity left his voice, which now rose on a note of alarm, making
him again sound vulnerable.

"Out!"  His companion had risen from the bed and reached the door of
the room.

"No, please, stay here!  I'm sorry you know I didn't mean ' " Why
should I stay and listen to you complaining about some situation you've
made for yourself?  It's not my fault if you've quarrelled with your
mother!  " "But if you go out, what about me, what shall I do?"

"You can stay here, watch the television anything you like!  Look, I
won't be long.  I'm just going for a little walk, for some air."

Nevil blurted, "I wish you wouldn't.  You oughtn't to walk round at
night like that: it's dangerous!"

"Dangerous?"  There was a husky chuckle.

"You know your trouble, Nevil?  You're frightened of everything yet you
long for everything.

Either you have to stop being scared, or you have to begin to love
danger, risk, even fear!  Feed on them, don't let them feed on you!  "
The speaker broke off, moistened scarlet lips and shrugged.

"I mean, you have to choose.  You know what the choice is, don't
you?"

The door clicked.  Alone, Nevil sat for a while sunk in gloom.  Then he
got up and went into the room beyond, where the television nickered in
silence because the sound had been turned down.  He turned it up again,
too much, and it blared raucously at him.

He flung himself into a chair.  There would be a scene when he got back
to the kennels if not tonight, then tomorrow morning.  Probably
tonight.  He'd creep in, but his mother's voice would still pierce the
air like a javelin.

"Where have you been?"  She'd be angry, bitter and unjust.  Worse than
these, she'd sound old and de fenceless

Murmuring words under his breath, Nevil rehearsed a fine, dignified
speech in which he defended his right to his own life and privacy.

But he knew he'd never deliver it, After a while he abandoned it and
sat watching the garish images, biting nervously at his fingernails as
he put off the dread moment when he had to go home.

Chapter Nine despite everything, Meredith slept well.  In the morning,
when she awoke, the sun was shining brightly, promising a fine day.

With the sun and the new dawn, optimism returned.  It was Saturday.

Alan would be arriving tomorrow.  Tuesday, which would bring Alex's
funeral, still seemed a long way off.  There was no point in worrying
about that now.

"I'm driving into town," Rachel said, mashing muesli into milk with a
spoon and gazing with distaste at the resulting cold porridge.

"Do you want to come along?"

Without waiting for an answer, she went on, "I don't know about you,
but when I was a kid I had it drummed into me how important it was to
eat a proper breakfast.  Now I've got a hang-up about it.

I feel I've got to sit down every morning and force down this stuff.

It looks like the sort of thing people feed pet rabbits."  She pushed
the bowl away.

"I'll skip town, if you don't mind," Meredith said.

"I'll potter around Lynstone."

"Nowhere much to potter.  I might not be back for lunch, but Mrs Pascoe
will take care of you."

"Don't trouble her," Meredith said quickly.

"I'll get a bite over at the hotel.  I believe they do bar lunches."

Things really were turning out better this morning.  She'd been
wondering how to get back to the hotel and talk to Mavis Tyrrell
without Rachel knowing.

One thing, however, niggled at her.

"Don't be alarmed, Rachel, but I ought perhaps to mention that I saw
someone last night from my bedroom window: a woman.  She was looking at
the house.

It was getting too dark to see her very well.  She gave me a bit of a
shock."

Rachel frowned.

"Someone trespassing in the grounds?"

"Only just inside the gate.  She began to walk towards the house, then
turned back as if she'd changed her mind.  It did occur to me that it
might be that woman journalist you told me about, back to try again.

You'd better keep your eyes peeled, Rachel.  I shall."  Rachel leaned
back in her chair and ruffled up her hair with both hands.

"Drat!  I'll tell Martin to patrol the entire gardens and call the
police if any wretched reporters show their noses.  After all, the
police don't mind pestering me!  If this goes on I might even get a
private security firm to send along a man and a very large dog."  Her
eyes suddenly brightened.

"But I was forgetting!  Alan's coming down!

He'll see anyone off!  What a good thing he'll be here."  Meredith
began to regret she'd been so keen to encourage Alan to stay on at the
hotel if he was going to be required to act as Rachel's personal
watchdog.  She attempted to play down the incident.

"It mightn't have been a reporter.  Perhaps a local resident was
walking past and just stopped to look.  She had a long-sleeved dress,
was stockily built and had long dark hair.  That mean anyone to you?"

Rachel shrugged.

"No.  The journalist who came had bleached hair, very badly cut, and a
grubby coat.  Could be another one, different tabloid?  Oh, wait, it
might have been Miriam Troughton wandering about!  She does do that
sometimes quite late in the evening.  She hits the bottle, if you ask
me, and goes for a walk round to sober up so Jerry won't realise it.

She gives me the creeps.

If you want my advice, do as I do and steer clear of her.  "
"Troughton?  Doesn't he own the hotel?"

"That's the guy.  He found Miriam abroad somewhere exotic and brought
her back to Lynstone.  She's a bit loopy.  I don't mean she's simple, I
mean weird.  She's bright enough, speaks very good English.  I think
she must have money of her own.  Every so often she takes off and we
don't see her for a couple of weeks.  She comes back looking as though
she's been on the tiles.

Every time she goes, Jerry Troughton hopes he's seen the last of
her!"

Rachel grinned wickedly.

"And every time she comes back!  His greatest desire is that she'll run
off with another man!  But no other man would take Miriam on.  She
batted her eyelashes at Alex when we first came here to no effect, let
me add!"

Meredith found herself curiously comforted by this information.  It was
nice to put a name and a history to the shadowy figure seen last night
by the gate.  It dispelled the lingering unease with which the moment
had left her.

"Talking of history," she said, 'who built this house?  " She indicated
the room around them.

"Oh, that was a member of the Morrow family.  They owned Lynstone House
when it was a proper family home.  If you're going to the hotel, get
Mavis Tyrrell to tell you the tale.  She can tell it better than I
can.

Her late husband was an amateur local historian.  She knows all sorts
of things about the place."

Rachel got up.

"Sure you won't come to town?  I warn you, half an hour of Mavis's
tales of old Lynstone and you'll be screaming!  Oh, and if you want a
sherry before your lunch, drink one here.  At least my sherry comes
from Spain.  Lord knows where Jerry Troughton's hails from.  It tastes
as though he makes it in a bucket."

It was too early to tackle the hotel, so when Rachel had driven off,
Meredith went out to explore Malefis Abbey's extensive gardens.  They
were certainly beautifully kept.  Martin must work very hard if he had
no help.  He knew his job, too

At that moment, she heard the gardener's voice and his laugh.  She
rounded an island of shrubs and came upon the young man himself,
sitting on the grass by his wheelbarrow and talking animatedly into a
cellular phone.  When he saw her he cut short his conversation and
jumped up to greet her.

"Good morning.  Miss Mitchell."  He smiled, pushing down the aerial and
putting the phone away in his jacket pocket.

"Good morning, Martin.  Sorry to disturb you."

He waved a hand.

"It's nothing, not important.  I was taking a break, don't you say
that?"

"Yes, and I'm sure you've earned it.  I've been admiring your
handiwork.  The gardens are beautiful.  Actually, there's someone
coming to lunch tomorrow who will really appreciate them."

Alan Markby would not only enjoy the gardens, he'd be eaten up with
envy, Meredith thought.

Martin was smiling happily at the praise.

"You see, I am a student of horticulture.  I was at college in France
and I have my diploma.  I wanted to improve my English and get, you
know, some gardening experience, so I came here for a year.  I saw in a
local paper that Mr and Mrs Constantine wanted some help in the
garden.

I think they only wanted someone to work a few hours each week.  But
when I wrote and explained, they engaged me full time.  It was Mr
Constantine who engaged me.

He was very kind to me."  Martin's dark eyes expressed sorrow.

"I was very sorry when he died."

Another one who had been a member of what Meredith couldn't help but
think of now as Alex's fan club.  Had no one disliked him?  Had he
trodden on no one's toes?  Never had the briefest disagreement over
parking or noise or any of the usual disputes between neighbours?  But
perhaps not here.  Malefis was too far from its nearest neighbour to
run the risk of that kind of annoyance.

She eyed Martin.  He was a nice-looking boy, oval-faced and
olive-skinned, with liquid brown eyes and a small but full-lipped
mouth.  It was the sort of face which stared out of old church
frescoes, and it was certainly different to any other around here.  No
wonder the girl at the Mini-Mart had been impressed.

"There can't be much social life for you in Lynstone," Meredith said.

"Or in Church Lynstone.  I went there yesterday."

Martin gave a shy smile.

"But I have a friend."

The maiden in the Mini-Mart, presumably.  Youth will find a way.

Meredith realised she ought to have given Martin more credit for
enterprise.

"Right.  Oh, did Mrs Constantine mention to you that the journalists
may have come back?"

"Yes, mademoiselle.  I'll watch carefully for them."

They parted amicably.  Meredith glanced at her watch.  Coffee-break
time.

Still a little early to invade the hotel, but perhaps a good time to
visit the cattery.

As Meredith approached the entry to Lynstone Kennels and Cattery, she
saw that fate was continuing to smile kindly upon her this morning.

Nearing the entrance from the other direction was Mrs James, being
towed along by three dogs of assorted breeds.

"Been walking them!"  she announced breathlessly as she reached
Meredith.

The dogs gathered before Meredith and stared up at her expectantly.

Their combined gaze was unnerving, not least because of the different
levels from which it was aimed.  The biggest dog today was a recently
arrived retriever, and the smallest still the disgruntled corgi.  It
flopped on its plump stomach, its tongue lolling at such alarming
length it seemed that at any minute it might detach from its roots.

"Poor little sod," said Mrs James, indicating the animal with the toe
of her sturdy shoe.

"Not used to walking.  Kept in a flat and hardly ever taken out.  By
the time he goes home we'll have trimmed him down and got him fit, but
she'll undo all the good work."

"She', presumably, was the dog's owner.

"I'm just wandering around looking at the countryside," Meredith
said.

"If I'd known, I could have walked the dogs for you."

Mrs James clearly appreciated the spirit of the offer.  "Pop in if
you're at a loose end.  We can always use an extra pair of hands.  Want
a cup of coffee now?"

Coffee was drunk from assorted mugs while seated round the kitchen
table.  The assembled staff of the kennels/cattery joined forces for
the break, which meant, besides Mrs James and the guest, Nevil and a
large, ungainly girl who was introduced as Gillian.

Nevil looked slightly apprehensive at seeing Meredith again, and cast
her a beseeching look.  She interpreted this as a plea not to mention
Rachel.

The girl, Gillian, sat hunched over her mug, chewing the end of one
lank lock of mousy hair, and staring balefully at the visitor.

Meredith wondered if she'd inadvertently done something to offend
her.

Despite herself, her eye was drawn to Gillian's large red hands.

Sadly, it seemed Rachel had been rightly scornful of the kennel maid
appearance.  Nor did any obvious remedy spring to mind.  Gillian,
Meredith suspected, was one of those young women who had early lost
confidence in their own appearance, and sullenly refused even to
attempt improvement.

Perversely, this often went with a suppressed but passionate longing to
be loved.  By Nevil?  Meredith wondered about that.

Conversation promised to be stilted, but Mrs James, riding rough-shod
over her son's discomfort, took charge of it by asking loudly, "How's
it going up at Malefis?"

"As well as can be expected," said Meredith, avoiding Nevil's anguished
gaze.

"Managing, is she?"  Mrs James leaned forward.

"Yes, pretty well, thanks."

"See?"  Mrs James turned triumphantly to her son.

"See?  She can manage perfectly well without you!  You don't have to go
running over there every five minutes.  Anyway, she's got what's your
name?

Meredith, isn't it?  She's got Meredith there now."

Nevil was puce with either embarrassment or rage, perhaps both.

Gillian had raised her head like a watchful pointer and was listening
closely.

"Someone else is coming down tomorrow," Meredith said, with a suspicion
she was making things worse.  But they might as well know now and get
used to the idea.

"Only he's not staying at the house.

He'll be staying at the hotel."  Her information came too late.

"Mavis told me," said Mrs James.

"Name of Markby, right?  Another copper, isn't he?"

Rachel had warned her.  Nothing went on in Lynstone that Molly James
and Mavis Tyrrell didn't know about.  Mavis was especially well placed
at the hotel to gather news.

"Yes, but not investigating Mr Constantine's murder."

"So why's he coming?"

Meredith found the other three were looking at her, rather as earlier
the three dogs had done.  She faltered, "He's a friend of mine."

Nevil appeared to relax.  Gillian got up and gathered the mugs
together.  She scuffed her way over to the sink and began to clatter
the crockery together under a running tap by way of washing up.

Mrs James leaned forward again, gimlet-eyed.

"Is she going to sell up?"

"Sell up?"  Meredith was taken aback.

"She hasn't said she hasn't decided.  It's early days.  I think no
decisions about anything will be taken until after the funeral."

"Tuesday, isn't it?"  Mrs James was informed about that, too.

"Poor blighter," she added by way of decent tribute to the late Alex.

"Nasty way to go, poisoned dart."

"Not exactly a dart!"  Hastily Meredith added, "But certainly nasty.  I
was there!"

This statement electrified the atmosphere.  Gillian dropped a mug into
the sink and there was a sharp crack of breaking pottery.  She turned
and stared wildly at Meredith.

Nevil opened and shut his mouth wordlessly.

Mrs James said,

"Were you?  That's a turn-up for the books!  How was it done?"

"Well, we don't really know.  The police are working on it."

"You must have seen something!"  Mrs James argued.

"Yes, surely," Nevil added, coming to life.

"I mean, from what we heard, there were people all around!"

"Yes, that's the problem.  Too many people.  I'm afraid we didn't see
anything or realise at first how seriously he'd been hurt."

There was a silence.  Gillian said, "I've broken your mug, Molly."

"Chuck it out," said Mrs James absently, her eyes fixed on Meredith.

She gave herself a little shake and added briskly.  "Got to dust the
cats.

Can't have fleas getting into the cages.  Never get 'em out.

I'll see you around some time, Meredith.  I sometimes go up to the
hotel for a drink before lunch."  Meredith left the cattery reflecting
that an appointment had been made and Mrs James expected her to keep
it.

In the bar-lounge of the hotel there was more sign of life than on her
previous visit.  Two elderly gentlemen were drinking quietly together
in one corner.  They nodded sociably to her.  In another corner, a
youngish couple pored over a map.  They had presumably become lost in
the tangle of lanes and fetched up here, much as she had done.  Behind
the bar, a small, plump man with receding hairline and round, marmoset
eyes watched her approach.

"Good afternoon!"  he trilled.  It was about ten-past twelve.

"Mr Troughton?"

"The same!"  he confirmed cheerily.

"This is a small place.  News travels!  No one stays a stranger for
long.

You'll be the lady who's staying at Malefis with Mrs Constantine."

"Yes."  Meredith remembered Rachel's probably quite unjust warning
about the sherry, but to be on the safe side she asked for a glass of
wine.

"I was hoping I could have lunch here.  You do bar meals, don't you?"

Mr Troughton indicated the blackboard beside the mirror.

"All up there!  Today's special, steak and kidney pie.  I'm the
cook!"

he added.

"Oh, right.  Then could you make that red wine?"

"I can!  Here, try a drop of this..."  Mr Troughton filled a large wine
glass and pushed it towards her.

"That's very acceptable, that is.

Quite a little find of mine."  The young man with the map was sidling
up to the bar.  Mr Troughton gave Meredith a friendly wink and turned
to the new customer.

Meredith took her wine to a chair by the unlit hearth, filled with a
display of gilded pine cones, and settled down with an ancient copy of
Horse and Hound.

After a few moments.  Mavis Tyrrell materialised by her side holding a
pile of ashtrays.

"I brought you one of these."

"Oh, thanks.  I don't smoke, actually."

"Never mind."  Mavis put down a large pottery dish emblazoned with the
name of a brand of whisky.

"How are you getting on?"

The question struck Meredith as ambiguous.  Had Mavis in some way
sniffed out her true purpose?  Surely not.

"Very well, thank you.  Er, Mrs Constantine's driven into Chipping
Norton.

I'm on my own for lunch so I thought I'd come over here."

"Have you ordered?"

"I think I'm having the steak and kidney pie," Meredith said
cautiously.

"Mr Troughton recommended it."

"He's a lovely cook, is Mr Troughton."

"What about Mrs Troughton?"  Meredith plunged in boldly.

Mavis lowered her voice.

"Very difficult lady.  Foreign, you know.  I'm not sure what she is.

Mr Troughton worked abroad in the catering line at one time.  For one
of these big companies which employ a lot of people in the Middle
East.

Mrs Troughton never liked Lynstone and now she and Mr Troughton go
their separate ways.

She still lives here, but they don't appear together.  She comes and
goes.

Funny woman."

"Who is?  Me?"  demanded a new voice, and Molly James appeared.

"Oh, hullo, Molly!  Not you, dear.  Mrs T."

"Oh, her!"  Molly flopped down in chair opposite Meredith.

"I'll have a gin and tonic, Mavis, if you've got time."

When Mavis had gone, Molly fixed Meredith with an eagle eye.

"Here I am!  You were expecting me, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was."

"Thought you were bright.  Knew you'd cotton on."

Molly hunted in the pocket of the khaki safari shirt she wore and
produced a crumpled packet.

"Care for a smoke?  Oh, don't, eh?  Mind if I do?"

"No, go ahead."

Molly lit up and sat back with the cigarette dangling from one corner
of her mouth and a trail of smoke spiralling up into her right eye.

She squinted villainously at Meredith, either because of the smoke or
to assess her better, as she tucked the packet back into her pocket.

"We could do with a few bright women like you around here!  But there's
no reason for the likes of you to hang around."  She paused and took
the cigarette from her mouth, to Meredith's great relief.

The muscles of Molly's face had been contorting in alarming grimaces to
avoid the smoke.

"It's a pity..."  Mrs James went on thoughtfully.

"A pity there weren't a few bright girls about.  I never used to think
so once.  I was wrong about that.  Oh, well.  Paying for it now."

She regarded the cigarette philosophically.  She had taken the trouble
to smear a little cheap scarlet lipstick over her withered mouth before
coming to the hotel, but most of it had now been transferred to the
cigarette.

Her enigmatic statement was not one Meredith particularly wanted to
follow up.  She had a shrewd idea what it meant, anyhow.  Since with
Molly there was no point in beating about the bush, she asked bluntly,
"What did you want to talk to me about?"

Molly appreciated her directness.

"Nevil.  Look here, I wasn't born yesterday.  I don't know who you
are.

All right, you're a friend of Rachel's, but you've never been down here
to Lynstone before, so I reckon you can't be that much of a close
chum!"

"You're right, as it happens.  We were at school together, but only for
a couple of years and we weren't that close then.  We hadn't been in
touch again till very recently.  Then it was very much a chance
meeting."

Ill-omened, too, Meredith reflected.

Molly was listening carefully.  Her faded, intelligent eyes watched
Meredith's face as she spoke.  It would be very difficult to deceive
Molly, and also unwise.  Meredith didn't doubt that Molly was the
unforgiving kind.

Rachel had told her that she was already on Molly's list of unforgiven,
and Meredith had no wish to join her there.

She felt uneasy, wondering just how far would Molly go?

The ash had become a long, unsteady appendage to Molly's cigarette.

She tapped it out in the nick of time, soiling the nice clean ashtray
Mavis had brought.

"All right.  I'll buy that!  But there's this other copper who's coming
along.  I don't mean the London chap.  I mean this Markby.  Who is he,
exactly?  Apart from a friend of yours."

"Actually," Meredith eyed the other woman thoughtfully, wondering how
the news would be taken, 'he was Rachel's first husband."  It would be
difficult to take the wind out of Molly James's sails, but this
statement came as near as ever was.  Molly's weather-beaten countenance
turned brick red.  She gaped, said, "Hell's teeth!"  and clamped her
lips on what was left of her cigarette, glaring at Meredith.

Mavis chose that moment to bring the gin and tonic and another wine for
Meredith, "Compliments of Mr Troughton.  He says the steak and kidney
will be along in five minutes."

The interlude had given Molly a chance to regroup her forces.  When
Mavis had gone, she leaned back again, G and T in hand, and said, "Then
I was right!"

"About what?"

"You're not just a visitor.  You and this other fellow, Markby you've
come down here to snoop around!

You think whoever did the dastardly deed came from Lynstone!  " "Rachel
wanted company--' Meredith began.  Molly was alarmingly accurate, and
the last thing Meredith wanted was for her to spread the truth around
the village.

Molly rolled over her protest.

"I won't go blabbing about it!  I've only got one interest in this
whole wretched affair, and that's Nevil.  Look here--' she crushed the
cigarette butt in the ashtray 'the boy thinks he's in love with Rachel
Constantine.  Of course he isn't!  It's a passing thing, a sort of
crush.  Until he gets over it, it's making life dashed awkward.

Especially now because, you see, some people might say he had a motive
to bump off Alex.  But Nevil wasn't in London that day.  He was at the
kennels all day with Gillie and me.  And I've got an independent
witness!"  Her voice rose in triumph.

"The corgi!"

"You're producing a dog as witness?"

"Don't be daft.  I mean that was the day the woman turned up with the
corgi.

She'd mucked us about on the booking and we weren't sure if the dog was
coming or not.  But that day, she just drove up and decanted the
animal.  She reckoned she'd got the decorators in her flat and the dog
barked non-stop at them.  I suppose she thought she'd see if the dog
and the workmen would get along before she brought the animal to us and
let herself in for kennel fees.

Anyhow, Nevil took delivery of it and made her sign all the necessary
forms and so on.

So you see, he couldn't have been in London."  Molly tossed back her
gin with a flourish.

So Nevil could be crossed off the list.  She was truly grateful to
Molly.  It did save a certain amount of needless asking.

"OK, Molly, point taken."

The smell of hot pastry and rich gravy assailed Meredith's nostrils.

Mavis was approaching with a tray.  She set it down.  The steak and
kidney was in a little brown earthenware pie-dish standing on an oval
serving plate, together with a baked potato and buttered carrots.

"All right?"  asked Mavis complacently.

"Wonderful!"

"Let you get on with it!"  said Molly pleasantly.

Mavis pulled up a nearby chair and sat down by her friend.

"How's tricks, Molly?"

"Fine now!"  Molly rolled an eye at Meredith.

"Busy?"

"Will be, tomorrow, when our guests arrive."  This time Mavis gave
Meredith a significant glance.

If she was going to be included obliquely in the conversation, she
might as well join it.  Meredith took a sip of her wine.

"Mavis, Rachel tells me you know a lot about local history."

"My husband did," Mavis brightened.

"He used to go hunting through county records."

"She says you can tell me about the origins of Malefis Abbey."

"The abbey?  That was built by one of the Morrow family.  They lived
here."

Mavis pointed at the ceiling.

"There were brothers.  The elder one inherited Lynstone House and the
younger one felt badly about it.

He went wrong and got into lots of trouble so they sent him away.

Somehow he made a lot of money in ways which weren't quite
gentlemanly.

But he turned up again after several years with money in his pocket,
expecting to be allowed back into the family home.  Only the other
brother had married by then and had a young family, and he didn't want
any bad influences around.

So he wouldn't let him come and live here.  The younger brother decided
to get his own back.  He built Malefis Abbey right on the doorstep, as
it were, and lived there.  The name is French.  Not the sort of French
they speak in France now, I mean the sort they spoke in the Middle
Ages.  No one's quite sure, but it either means "evil son" or

"I evil did" , depending how you translate it.  It might mean both, I
suppose, a sort of joke; a pun, you'd call it.  All the Morrows have
long gone.  The First World War took both the sons of the house and
that was that.

" "I see."  Meredith plunged a fork into the crisp golden puff-pastry
crust and the thick gravy oozed up and out.  Unfortunately it made her
think of blood oozing from the flank of some stricken beast.  Alex's
death and anticipation of his approaching funeral had predisposed her
to such thoughts.

She put the fork down again.  There was something else, too, which
reminded her of Alex in Mavis's story.  A man who arrived with money in
his pocket and a mysterious past to set up house at Malefis Abbey.

History repeating itself, perhaps?

"Must get on," said Mavis, getting up.

"Nice to see you."

"Thought occurred to me," said Molly when Mavis had left them
together.

"While you and Mavis were yapping about Malefis Abbey.  I didn't want
him dead, you know."

"Alex?"  Meredith pushed aside the pie-dish and began to unwrap the
butter-pat which accompanied the baked potato.

"I don't suppose anyone thinks you did, Molly."

"Thought I'd mention it, even so.  I mean, if I'd planned to kill
either of them, I'd have gone for her\' Yes, thought Meredith, you
would.  I'd already worked that out!

Molly leaned forward.

"The last thing I ever wanted is for her to be roaming around the place
fancy-free, a widow!  I can't understand why someone did for the
husband.  He was a decent enough bloke.  Chatty, buy you a drink, put
his hand in his pocket for a good cause if anyone rattled a collecting
tin under his nose.  He ought to have kept his wife under closer
control, but he thought she was the bee's knees and let her do whatever
she wanted.  A lot of owners are like that with their dogs, you know,
and it always causes trouble.  But there was only so much length in the
leash, even so.  If she'd really shown signs of being stupid with
another man, he'd have reeled her in, sharpish.  So, you see, I had
more reason than most to want him alive and kicking and safely married
to that woman!  " Molly concluded her argument with a jab of the
forefinger.

Unfortunately, as she ceased speaking, 'that woman' walked into the
room.

Chapter Ten "I felt guilty about abandoning you all on your own."

Rachel stood over Meredith and fixed the steak and kidney pie with a
mistrustful look.

"So I hurried everything along and dashed back, hoping I'd be in time
to stop you ordering lunch here.  Too late, I see.  I might as well
join you, I suppose.  I wonder if old Jerry can fix me up a salad?

Hullo, Molly."  The salutation was tacked on carelessly, and Rachel
didn't bother to accompany it with a glance of acknowledgement.

"Cheers, Rachel!"  returned Molly, raising the empty gin glass.

"If you're going over to the bar, tell Troughton to bring me another,
would you?"

Rachel shrugged and walked over to the bar, where Mr Troughton awaited
her, elbows akimbo and palms flat on the polished top.

Molly gave a hoarse chuckle.

"That's put her nose out of joint!

Having to speak to me and run an errand for me!  " Meredith, who liked
Molly but was Rachel's guest and here as Rachel's friend, saw that she
was placed in a difficult situation.  She tucked into the pie to avoid
any answer.  Rachel appeared to have settled her order and had drifted
to the table where the two elderly men sat.

They rose politely to greet her; and an exchange of civilities took
place.

"Doesn't matter how old they are," said Molly vindictively.

"Just look at those daft old jossers, will you?  Lusting like a pair of
aged goats!"

"Come on, Molly, be fair!"  Meredith reproached her.  This was taking
things too far.

"Don't care!"  said Molly defiantly.

"I speak my mind!"

Mr Troughton trotted over.  He put down a fresh gin and tonic for
Molly.

Then he carefully set out a glass of white wine, and a knife and fork
rolled up in a red paper napkin for Rachel in absentia.

"The salad will be along in a jiff.  Steak and kidney all right?"

"Lovely thanks; wine too."  It was.

"I know a place..."  said Mr Troughton mysteriously and retired before
he could be asked to breach the secrecy surrounding the identity of his
wine merchant.

Rachel came back and threw herself into the chair vacated by Mavis
Tyrrell earlier.

"I settled the flowers for Alex while I was in town.  I hope they'll be
all right.  I ordered tributes on behalf of you and Alan, Meredith.

I hope you don't mind.  I sprang the funeral on you, so I knew you
wouldn't have done it."

"No, I hadn't.  Thank you."

"So what have you been doing all morning?"  Rachel was studiously
ignoring Molly, which irritated Meredith.  She hadn't time for silly
games and it wasn't her quarrel.

"I've been admiring your beautiful gardens and talking to Mrs James."

Rachel was obliged to turn to the third member of their group at
last.

"Dishing all the dirt, Molly?"

"Is there any?"  riposted Mrs James, with gravelly sarcasm.

"I'm sure you'd know if there was.  Taking another liquid lunch, I
see."

"Right, you listen to me!"  snarled Molly, leaning forward.  "I've been
working damn hard all morning, and I've earned my noggin!  If you did a
hand's turn occasionally, it wouldn't do you any harm.  Keep you out of
mischief!"

"Mischief, Molly?"  Rachel's voice would have sheered through
plate-glass.

"You know what they say.  The devil finds work for idle hands!"

Rachel crouched over the table so that her nose and her opponent's
almost touched.

"You nasty-minded old harpy!  I haven't seduced your precious boy, if
that's what you mean!"

"Oh, haven't you?"  Molly croaked.

"For heaven's sake, I don't even want him!"

"Then tell him so!  Why don't you, eh?  No, not you, you like playing
fast and loose with my son!"

"Don't talk such rubbish Molly!  And in such pompous language.  You
sound like a bad Victorian novel!"

"Oh, rubbish, is it?  He's a sensitive boy!  But what would you know
about that?  Have you any idea what you're doing to him?"

"He's not a boy, for crying out loud!  He's a grown man.  Admit it and
let him loose from your apron strings!"

"Don't row in here!"  Meredith interpolated fiercely.  The couple with
the map were listening fascinatedly, the girl goggle-eyed and the young
man grinning.

The protagonists ignored her.

"How dare you?"  spluttered Molly.

"And how dare you?"  flew back from Rachel.

"I've just lost my husband in quite horrible circumstances, and you sit
there accusing me of deceiving him!  You might at least show basic
decency!"

Meredith had to admit that Rachel was right.  This was neither the time
nor the place for Molly to vent her anger, however deeply it was felt,
and whether or not it was justified.  She pushed aside her plate.

"I've finished, Ray.  Perhaps we could go home?  He hasn't brought the
salad yet and we can cancel it on the way out."

She might have saved her breath.

"Decency?  What do you know about decency?"  growled Mrs James.

"One husband about to be buried, and already you're shipping in a
previous model as stand-in!  Is that decent?"

Rachel threw a furious glare at Meredith.

"You told her about Alan?

I'd have thought you had more sense, Merry!  " "Leave me out of your
fight," said Meredith sharply.

"I suppose you weren't to know about her," Rachel pointed a trembling,
pink-tipped finger at Molly.

"I'm going back to Malefis, anyway, with or without you!"  Meredith
gathered up her belongings determinedly.

"But I think you should come too, Ray.  People are looking."

The young couple immediately stared hard down at their map.

Mr Troughton chose that moment to appear with Rachel's salad.

"Pate, Mrs C, all right?"

"Right!"  Rachel seized it from him and marched with it to the further
side of the room, where she took a seat at a vacant table.

"Excuse me," said Meredith to Molly.  She grabbed the white wine and
cutlery and transferred herself to the new table where Rachel sat
staring in frustration at her plate.

"Here, you'll need these."  Meredith handed her the knife and fork.

"Thanks.  I didn't mean to snap at you, Merry, but that woman takes the
biscuit!"

"We won't talk about it now, all right?"

"But she insulted me!"  Rachel's eyes filled with tears of rage.

"Have a swig of wine and forget it, OK?  She's leaving anyway."

Mrs James, flushed with triumph and gin, was marching head high to the
door.

"To think someone murdered dear sweet Alex!"  hissed Rachel, jabbing
her fork in the direction of her enemy.  "Why doesn't someone murder
her7 They should, you know, they bloody well should.  Give me a weapon
and I'll do it!"

A momentary silence had fallen in the bar and Rachel's last words fell
into it with crystal clarity.

"Shut up, Ray!"  Meredith ordered peremptorily, but too late.

Sunday morning at last.  Meredith threw open the bedroom window and
breathed deeply.  In a few hours' time, Alan would arrive.  The early
morning dew still covered the lawns with a thin film of silver.  Birds
fluttered between the trees.  The image of peace was so strong that
disharmony seemed out of the question.  Then, very faintly, as if to
remind her, Meredith heard a distant burst of barking.  Breakfast at
the kennels.  The fading memory of yesterday's brouhaha returned sharp
enough to make her wince inwardly.  She hoped nothing like that would
happen in Alan's presence.

Rachel wasn't at the breakfast table.

"She's feeling a bit under the weather," said Mrs Pascoe.  "I'm not
surprised.  It's all been a terrible strain.  Bacon and eggs?"

"Just an egg will be fine, thanks.  Is she, Mrs Constantine, eating all
right?"

"No, not to my mind.  Just picks at things.  I've got a nice piece of
beef for lunch and I hope she eats some of it.  What time is the
gentleman getting here?"

"Around eleven."

"I'm glad," said Mrs Pascoe, 'that she's got people around her at this
sad time, with the funeral on Tuesday and everything.  It's when you
need family.

Of course, he was foreign, Mr Constantine, and so there isn't anyone on
his side.  Terrible shame."

"Yes, I only met him briefly."  Very briefly.

"Do you get many visitors at Malefis?  In normal circumstances, I
mean."

"No, dear.  Mr and Mrs Constantine lived very quietly.  He doted on
her."

Mrs Pascoe pressed her clasped hands against her chest and rolled her
eyes heavenward.

"He was a lovely man!"

Perhaps someone ought to put Alex up as a candidate for sainthood.

What they needed, but Meredith had yet to find, was someone to act as
devil's advocate.  But that, perhaps, would be her job.

And if she were successful?  Suppose Alex turned out to have been the
channel for Libyan or Iranian funds aimed at supporting subversive
organisations?  Or a Syrian nationalist bent on destroying any Middle
East settlement inimical to that country's interests?  Was that what
Foster's people suspected?  Or if it were not political but drugs, or
arms, or illegal movement of funds, a financial scandal?  What would it
achieve to prove any of these things, other than to ruin Rachel's
memory of a happy marriage and destroy the excellent reputation Alex
enjoyed locally?  The man was dead.

The dead could do no harm.  Why seek to harm their memory?

Meredith put these tangled conjectures out of her mind.  There was a
strong possibility that she'd find nothing and Foster would have to
accept her failure.  And if he didn't like it, too bad.

After a leisurely breakfast, Meredith went upstairs to see how Rachel
was.

She was sitting up in bed reading the Sunday papers.

And what a bed!  A vast, king-size divan with, towering above it, a
headboard upholstered in imperial purple within a gilt rococo frame.

To either side, on bedside tables of Louis Quinze style, stood table
lamps with fringed satin shades and barley-twist stands.  Rachel,
reclining amidst this Byzantine splendour, smiled in welcome and made a
regal gesture to her visitor to advance.

"Hullo, Merry!  Which do you want?  George Naseby delivers the Sunday
Times and the Mail on Sunday."

"I'll come back later and read the papers.  I just came to see if you
were all right."

"More or less."  Rachel put down one of the supplements.  "I am worried
about those flowers for the funeral."

"I'm sure they'll be fine."

"I was thinking, I'd better ask Martin if there's anything in the
garden; you know, some sort of greenery which can be made into
wreaths."

"Rachel, I'll drive into town on Monday, go to the florists and make
sure.

Don't worry!  Now, if you're all right, I'll go for a walk."

The garden was fresh and green, the ground slightly damp underfoot from
overnight dew.  Meredith walked right round it, her eyes seeking
possible material to make wreaths if something really went wrong with
the floral arrangements.  Not that she had any talent with floral
arrangements and wouldn't know how to start making a wreath.

Moreover, they'd have to ask Martin before they cut anything down.

Gardeners, in her experience, went berserk if anyone chopped off a
carefully nurtured shoot or bloom and carried it away for decorative
purposes.  That the garden didn't actually belong to Martin wouldn't
make any difference.  If a man worked all day hoeing and mowing, no
matter who the property-owner, the labourer regarded the garden as
his.

Unsurprisingly, Martin wasn't to be seen anywhere.  It was Sunday and
presumably a day off.  The young man lived, Rachel had said, in a flat
above the detached double garage some way from the house.  Passing by
it, Meredith saw the curtains were drawn.  Martin was spending a
morning in bed.  She wondered if he was alone or if Naseby's assistant
was keeping him company.

She glanced at her wristwatch.  Alan Markby would be arriving soon.  It
might be a good idea to waylay him before he reached the house and tell
him briefly what the situation was.  Meredith made her way to the main
gates and stood by one of the posts for a while, looking down that lane
in the direction Alan's car must come.

The lane was deserted, and just hanging about grew tedious.  A sudden
rustle in the trees on the other side, which must border the land
belonging to the hotel, took her attention.  A grey squirrel ran out
between the tangled roots of an ancient oak and scampered across to a
horse chestnut, pausing only to look across at her before scrabbling up
the trunk into the branches with their new green leaves.

It was quite chilly beneath the overhanging boughs, and the air was
dank, smelling of wet soil and the rotted debris left behind by
winter.

Meredith clasped her arms and hoped Alan wouldn't be late.

Around her the branches rustled again.  The ones around the stone
pineapple atop the gate post shivered in the breeze and scraped against
the masonry.

Perhaps there was other wildlife up there, watching her and waiting for
her to go away.

Her ear caught a new sound, a different sort of scrape, more a
grinding.

Meredith frowned and glanced up.  Nothing.  But there was something
sinister about the constantly moving, whispering trees and
undergrowth.

"Come on, Alan!"  she murmured.

The strange scraping sound was heard again.  Was that only the
branches?  She tried to ignore it but suddenly it was there again,
louder and more prolonged this time, with a teeth-jangling screech of
protest added to it.  This couldn't be ignored or explained by wind in
the branches.  With considerable alarm, Meredith swept her gaze up to
the pineapple, just in time to see it rock violently on its eggcup
pedestal before it came crashing down.

Chapter Eleven alan mark by found the turning into the lane up Windmill
Hill without trouble on Sunday morning.  Meredith had explained to him
over the phone just where it was.

She hadn't told him anything else.  He'd mulled over this fact as he
drove along.  In his experience, when people were in a tight spot they
adopted extemes of attitude, either talking a lot or keeping an
introspective silence.  That Meredith had said so little could mean she
was in an awkward spot.  Or perhaps just that Rachel might have H
overheard the conversation.

Awkward spot?  He'd given a little snort of incredulity as the car
bumped over rough country roads.  His disbelief sprang from the fact
that he'd allowed Rachel to manoeuvre him like this after all these
years.  Yes, he was going to Lynstone because of Meredith.  But
Meredith was there because Rachel had asked her to go.  Thus Rachel had
hooked him using Meredith as bait.

Laura had seen it clearly.

He'd denied it to his sister, but he was under no illusions himself and
had just been trying to save face.  Rachel was constitutionally unable
to exist without a man around and, in a time of crisis, even an
ex-husband would do.

His role, he was fairly sure, would be to deflect Hawkins, whose
imminent descent on Lynstone Rachel must be viewing with dismay.  She
liked unpleasantness to go away, not arrive in the cynical form of an
investigating officer.

Markby could also have done with some of the promised unpleasantness
going away.  There was no aspect of the next few days which didn't fill
him with gloom.  Alex's funeral, for example, for which he'd packed his
dark suit and black tie.  Or staying at the same hotel as a suspicious
and rancorous Superintendent Hawkins.

Hawkins, when he saw Markby, would form his own conclusions as to why
he was there.  The mere fact that they would be wrong wouldn't make
them less tenaciously held; probably the opposite.

Markby reflected that, despite all this, his opinion of the London
man's ability remained high.  Hawkins was an experienced professional
nd nobody's fool.

He suspected that the respect wasn't mutually held and that Hawkins's
opinion of him left a lot to be desired.  Hawkins saw Markby as a man
worse, a policeman who took photographs of flowers while someone was
subjected to a murderous attack a few feet away.  Markby had then
compounded the sin by walking with the stricken victim to his car
without realising what had happened.

Markby wouldn't live that down; nor did he deserve to, he told himself
bitterly.  He was furious with himself over it.  He should have
realised and hadn't.  Of course Hawkins thought he was a disgrace to
the force!

However, Hawkins, good as he was, might find himself at a disadvantage
in Lynstone.  A city man to his boots, he'd be in disconcertingly
unfamiliar territory.  To deal with country people was a quite
different matter to dealing with streetwise Londoners.  Country didn't
mean simple.  Country meant an innate cunning which would leave Hawkins
swearing impotently as question after question was effortlessly parried
for the sheer perverse pleasure of leaving the city feller stranded.

Markby's thoughts returned to Meredith.  Knowing her, she would have
been doing some looking around on her own account.  The thought both
worried him and made him curious to know how she'd got on.  It had
really surprised him that she'd answered Rachel's cry for help so
quickly and with so little argument.  He had a feeling that there was
more to Meredith's decision to go to Lynstone than she was telling.

He hoped he knew her better than to think it had been mere curiosity.

She wasn't the sort who picked over the bones of others' misfortunes.

It might all change when he saw her.

A split second later, he did see her.

There were gate posts ahead set in a long dry stone wall beneath
overhanging foliage.  He had slowed and, although there was no other
traffic in the lane, indicated he was about to turn.  It was his
prudence in not just spinning his wheel and sweeping through the gates
with a flourish that prevented his running over the body which lay
sprawled on the driveway between the posts.

Markby slammed on the brakes and leapt out of the car.  When he reached
her, she was trying to sit up and shaking her head in a dazed way.  He
knelt over her and grasped her shoulders.

"Take it easy!"

"Alan?"  She struggled upright and sat on the damp gravel, inspecting
her grazed right wrist and hand with an expression of surprise.  She
looked up, saw his concerned expression and gasped, "I'm all right!

Honestly!"

"I nearly ran right over you!  What happened?"

She shook her head as if to clear it and looked around.  That fell.  "
He looked to where she pointed.  That' was a large stone object, neatly
split in two by the force of its fall.  It looked like a large, bumpy
egg.  But he recognised it as a stylised pineapple, a common gate
ornament for houses of this sort.

Markby glanced automatically at the opposite gate post, and saw what
would have been the fallen sculpture's twin, still aloft.  His heart
gave a little hop of fear as he realised just what the result of this
accident could have been.  His former anger with himself was increased,
too, because he should have stopped her coming down to Lynstone.  He
couldn't have foreseen this particular mishap, but he should have known
nothing good could come out of the visit.  Something was almost bound
to go wrong.

"Come on!"  he said grimly.

"Let's get you off this damp ground."

She let him haul her to her feet where she examined her mud-stained
skirt ruefully.

"Look at that!  What a nuisance."

"Nuisance?"  Markby stared first at the muddy mark and then,
incredulously, at her.  That thing could have dashed your brains out!

" "Yes, it must have been loose.  I was waiting for you."  She essayed
a weak grin.

"I heard it give a sort of grating noise, but I didn't have the wit to
realise it was going to fall."

He growled, "Get in the car!  I'll take us up to the front door."

As he drove round the fallen pineapple and down the drive to the main
entrance, the jumble of things occupying his mind prevented him paying
much attention to the exterior of the house.  But automatically he
noted its eccentric character and judged its probable age.  If the
pineapples had been installed at the time the house was built, they'd
have been on top of their posts for upwards of a hundred years.

And one of them had chosen this morning to fall.  He was too much of an
old hand to believe that could simply be dismissed as coincidence.

Rachel opened the door as they drove up.

"Alan, here you are at last!"  Her gaze moved to his companion whom he
was helping out of the front seat.

"Merry?"  Her tone sharpened.

"What's happened?"

When it was explained to her, Rachel's reaction was to insist Meredith
first downed a brandy, then went upstairs to lie down until called for
lunch.

Meredith had protested this was completely unnecessary, and all she
needed to do was put some ointment on the graze and change her
clothes.

For once, Markby had decided Rachel was right.  At their combined
insistence, Meredith, still protesting, was led away by a shocked and
sympathetic Mrs Pascoe.

Left alone with Rachel, Markby struggled to control an outburst of
anger.  He thrust his hands into his pockets and glared belligerently
around the room.

What a god-awful place this was!  A sort of Victorian nightmare
furnished with expensive period furniture, real and reproduction, and
valuable knickknacks.  It made him think of some middle-European
Schloss turned museum, suggesting an uneasy if eye-catching mix of
luxury, decadence and Weltschmerz.

He turned his gaze unwillingly to Rachel, who was standing nearby with
folded arms.  She complemented his feelings about the room perfectly.

Dressed in a black wool suit with a white silk shirt, her honey-blonde
hair curled on her shoulders, kept neat by an alice-band.  She wore
pearls in her ears and round her throat.  He'd bet his last penny they
were real.

She met his critical assessment with defiant green eyes.  "I'll get
Martin to clear the pineapple out of the drive.  It's a really
extraordinary thing to have happened!  I can't understand why it
fell!"

She made purposefully towards the door, but he didn't want the
pineapple moved just yet.

"Hold on!"  he said sharply.

"Leave it.  I'll take a look at it first to see what caused it to
fall.

I'll also climb up and check the other one.  You have a ladder, I
suppose?"

"Yes, of course we have!"  She was irritated.

"But Martin can do it.

It's part of his job."

"I'll do it!"  He sounded so decided that she gave way with a gesture
of dismissal.

"All right, if you must!  But I suppose we can have a civilised glass
of sherry first?  You haven't to go running out there straight away?"

He didn't want the sherry.  He didn't want to be here.  He wanted to
collect Meredith, push her into his car and drive them both back to
Bamford.  But Rachel always made him feel as if he was the one being
unreasonable.  So he said, "All right, I'll have a sherry and then I'll
go and look at the gate post.  But I want to look at it before we have
lunch!"

"Of course!"  She smiled and went to a sideboard on which stood a tray
with glasses and a selection of bottles.

"Dry?  Try this one.  Alex Alex liked it."  She carried across the
glass with its pale gold contents, bearing it carefully before her.

He took it reluctantly.  Now he was to drink Alex's sherry and agree
how good it was.  She was pulling the strings, getting him to step
obediently into Alex's shoes, ready to take on Alex's role as
protector.

Rachel preceded to confirm his suspicions.  She sank down in the
nearest capacious feather-cushion-upholstered armchair.

"I'm so glad you're here, Alan."  She tucked her feet under her and
smiled at him.

"Are you?"  he returned churlishly.

"Why?  No, let me tell you why!  I'm going to solve all your problems,
am I right?

"Don't be silly!  But you are capable.  I just need people I know and
trust round me.  And you can deal with Hawkins."

"Ah, I thought so!"

Rachel wriggled nervously and sipped at her own sherry.  "Don't start
grumbling, Alan, please!  I realise you're upset because Meredith had a
nasty fright, but don't be unkind to me, not now!"

Yes, make him feel clumsy and cruel!  He felt both things.  But that's
what she wanted him to feel.  The anger returned.  She must think he
was a fool if he couldn't see what role he was to play here.  Alex had
been removed inconveniently from the scene.  So here he was, plucked
from obscurity like an out-of-date piece of domestic equipment, dusted
off and put back into use for the time being.  He set down his glass
and leaned forward.

"I've no intention of being unkind, Rachel.  But to avoid any
unnecessary stress during the next few days, while we're on our own, we
might as well get a few things said and the air cleared."

"What things?"  she asked apprehensively.

"I'm sorry about Alex.  I do understand you're having to cope with his
loss and the funeral and everything else.  Naturally I'll do what I can
to help you with regard to practical matters.  But I don't like
Meredith being used as a ploy to get me down here."

She said spitefully, "Is that Laura's theory?"

"No, it's mine."

"But I'm sure Laura tried to prevent you coming here.  How is my former
sister-in-law?  Family well?"  Rachel's smile might have been likened
to the tiger's.

"They are all very well, thanks."

"How many of them?"

"Four children now."

"Oh my!"  said Rachel sweetly.

"What a lot!"

"Rachel!  I can't interfere in official investigations into Alex's
death.  I have no clout with Hawkins, quite the reverse!  And I'm not I
can't deal with your emotional problems."

There was a spark of anger in her eyes.

"I'm not angling for us to get back together!"  she said sharply.

"I don't suppose you are.  In fact, I'm sure you're not!  Not long
term.  But in the short term, it would be handy to have me around.  But
I'm not at your beck and call.  I told you, I'll do anything to help
with the funeral arrangements or anything practical.  But you have the
best legal advice, I'm sure, regarding care of your affairs and any
complications left by Alex's sudden demise, and frankly--' He paused,
then finished obstinately, 'frankly, it's not altogether decent for me
to hang around too long.  When Meredith goes back to Bamford, I'll go
with her."  She raised her sherry glass in ironic salute.

"Dear Alan, how delightfully old-fashioned you always were!"

"If you want to call it that.  I look on it as self- preservation."

"Afraid of me, Alan?"  She smiled.

"Don't be.  But you are wrong, as it happens.  I didn't use Meredith to
lure you down here.  I like to think you'd have come anyway, if I'd
asked you.

For old times' sake.

Wouldn't you?  " She raised a fine, arched eyebrow.

Markby sighed.

"Probably."

"You see, Alan?  You do care about me, just a bit."  She set down her
empty sherry glass and uncoiled from her chair.

"I'll just go and see how Mrs Pascoe is getting along in the
kitchen."

Markby wasn't sorry to see her go, partly because she still had the
ability to get under his skin and make him say and do things he
afterwards regretted, and partly because there was urgent need to check
the scene of the accident before anyone interfered with it.

The stone pineapple still lay on the drive in symmetric halves.

Markby hunkered down to study it, avoiding the marks of Meredith's
shoes and the scar of disturbed gravel where she'd fallen.  The split
surface was clean and pale, contrasting with the outer carved surface
which was dark with age and dirt and covered with bottle-green mould.

What he would really like to have done was to roll the two halves over
and examine the carved sides better.  But he couldn't disturb any of
the evidence which would have to be left, just as it was, for the local
police to see.

Rachel would object vehemently to the police being called in on this,
so he would call them first and tell her afterwards.  She had, after
all, indicated she wanted him to take charge.

From his limited observation it was obvious the pineapple, even just
half of it, was of considerable weight.  It sat in a sort of goblet or
egg-cup.  This had a solid stone stem and a broad base which ought to
have been cemented to the pedestal up there atop the gate post.  But
the flat underside of the goblet foot was crumbly and, when he touched
it gently with his fingertips, flaked away.  Moisture had got in over
the years, destroying the mortar so that the pineapple had been kept
aloft only by its own weight.

But that and the accumulated dirt and moss, which had formed a very
effective substitute mortar, should have kept the pineapple steady,
even if time and weather had successfully eroded the original fix.

There was no reason, on this relatively wind free day, why it should
have crashed down.

He raised his eyes to the spot from which it had fallen, and then
lowered his gaze to the sizeable hole gouged in the gravel only a foot
or so from where Meredith had been standing.  He felt a spurt of cold
fury.  At the very least it was a case of negligence.  But he had an
idea it was more than that.

Meredith was a witness to Alex Constantine's murder, and such witnesses
generally didn't just 'happen' to suffer near-fatal accidents.

He frowned and knelt down, heedless of the damage to the knees of his
trousers, to peer under the fallen stone fruit.  Around the neck of the
goblet the moss had been scored by a white scar.  Something had rubbed
the surface grime away.

He got up and pushed his way through the shrubbery on the garden side
of the dry stone wall.  It took him a while, pulling the branches away
and peering up at the irregular blocks before he saw the first nail,
hammered into a gap between stones about six inches below the coping
stone of the wall.  It was a large masonry nail, about six inches
long.

He reached up and gave it an experimental push.  It was quite solid and
also quite new, still shiny.  A few feet further along, away from the
gate, he found another and, eventually, a third.  At this spot the
shrubbery didn't grow right up to the wall, but stopped a foot away
from it, forming a natural well in the greenery.

Markby took care not to tread on the slimy mat of wet winter leaves
which rotted on the floor of it.  Someone else had done that.  There
was a clear indentation.

Markby pushed his way back to the gate and stepped out of the bushes.

A newcomer was crouched over the fallen pineapple and had reached out
to lift it up.  Markby shouted, "Leave that alone!"

The jeans-clad young man stood up.  The gardener, Markby thought.

Aloud he added crisply, "I want nothing moved."

"Mrs Constantine asked me to clear the gateway, sir."  The young man's
eyes were hostile.

"She is afraid another car will drive into it."

"I said, leave it!  You can move it tomorrow.  And nothing else is to
be touched, either!  Stay out of that shrubbery."  He pointed at the
bushes behind him.

"It is Mrs Constantine's garden and I have her orders!"  the young
gardener said sulkily.

"Now you've got mine and I'm a police officer!"  More mildly, Markby
added, "Look, lad, I'll explain to Mrs Constantine, all right?"

The boy shrugged.

"As you wish, sir."

"You can find a ladder, if you will.  Just leave it by the garage where
we can get at it later."

Martin nodded and walked off, a picture of offended dignity.  It was a
pity to have upset the boy's feelings and usurped his responsibility,
but it couldn't be helped.

Markby went back to the house and rang the number given for the police
station.  He identified himself briefly and asked, "When is
Superintendent Hawkins expected?  Right.  Can you get a message to
him?

Tell him I want to talk to him as soon as he arrives, if possible
before he calls at Malefis.  I'm staying at the hotel.  Look, have you
assigned one of your men to work alongside him?  " This was normal
practice when an officer from another division wished to pursue
investigations which had begun in his area and moved in the course of
inquiries to another.

"Sergeant Weston will be doing that, sir," came the voice down the
line.

"Fine.  Can Weston get over here now?"  A door opened somewhere in the
house and the smell of roast beef wafted towards Markby.

"I mean, after lunch," he said.  There was no point in hauling Weston
away from his Sunday lunch.  Rachel wouldn't like it much, either, if
Markby failed to show up to carve and the police started trampling
round the garden before the pudding.

Markby sipped at his coffee in the conservatory and leaned back in the
very comfortable cushions of the very expensive bamboo furniture.

The canaries fluttered and squeaked merrily among the branches of the
imprisoned orange tree, the heating creaked softly in the background.

It was all very soothing, if really far too warm and somewhat stuffy.

He'd had a long drive that morning and he was feeling drowsy.  The
scent of orange blossom acted like a narcotic on the senses.

The roast beef had been very good.  Meredith appeared none the worse
for the near miss, and Rachel had been on her very best behaviour.

All in all, thought Markby, despite the alarming incident of the
pineapple, things seemed to be under control.  True, Rachel hadn't
taken too kindly to the news that Weston would be arriving shortly.

But as long as she wasn't required to deal with him and could leave it
to Markby, she didn't object to the sergeant being in the grounds on a
Sunday.

Markby made an effort to pull his wandering wits together.

"This really is an extraordinary place," he said, putting down his cup
and indicating the conservatory.

"But it desperately needs plants in it, Rachel.  You just aren't
utilising the space.  This was designed to hold massed ranks of
tropical or sub-tropical species, not just those birds.  Look at the
height of the roof.

It's meant to accommodate palms.  It must have been a stunning sight
when it was in use for its proper purpose."

"Alex wasn't interested in cacti and palms and things," Rachel said.

"Only those canaries.  There were plants in here when we moved in, but
they were nearly all brown and dead-looking.  Not stunning, believe
me!

Just a mess.  Alex saved the orange tree for the birds to perch on.

The rest went in one glorious bonfire."

Markby couldn't stifle a groan of despair.

"God knows what you destroyed, Rach!  Probably some Victorian
collection of rare botanical specimens!  Some of them might have been
saved!  And it's such a waste of a wonderful construction!  Look at
that wrought-ironwork!  This is of the best Victorian glass houses I've
ever been in.  I know what I'd do with it."  He gazed wistfully around
him before catching Meredith's eye.

"Still, nothing to do with me," he added quickly.

"Nor is it anything to do with me," Rachel muttered.

"So it's no use grumbling at me about it.  I didn't decide on the
aviary.

Are you sure you don't want a liqueur, either of you?"

As they chimed their polite refusal, Mrs Pascoe appeared in the
doorway.

"There's a young police chap here wanting you, sir."

"That'll be Weston!"  Markby got up with some relief.

"I'll go and see to it."

Rachel turned a luminous smile on him.

"You see why I'm so glad you're here, Alan.  You're so good at taking
care of things."

Meredith sank back into her bamboo armchair and scowled.  She might
still be feeling unsettled, Markby thought as he left the two women in
the conservatory, or she might just be a tiny bit jealous.

He hoped she was jealous.

Chapter Twelve sergeant weston was a stocky, snub-nosed young man with
a shock of brush-bristle hair.  There was something about him which
reminded Markby of Sergeant Pearce, back at Bamford.  The coincidence
was encouraging and he felt himself relax.

Weston obviously found his surroundings impressive, but he wasn't
overawed by them, something Markby noted with approval.

"Quite a place this, isn't it?"  he observed.

"Yes, it is.  You'll be seeing a lot more of it if you're going to be
assisting Superintendent Hawkins.  I'd better show you the scene of the
accident, if that's what it was."

Weston mumbled vaguely about old stonework being unsafe, but when he'd
been shown the pineapple and the nails in the wall, his manner became
alert and practical.

"Rigged up, right enough!  He pushed the carving part- way over the
edge, and kept it from toppling with a length of thin rope wrapped
round the neck of that eggcup thing, taken back over the nails and
secured.  Then he waited in the bushes until he was ready and yanked
the line away.  Down came the stone!

That's a nice footprint back there in the shrubbery.  With luck, it's
his.  Sure it's not yours, sir?

" "Certain.  You can take a print of my shoe to eliminate it."

"The thing is," Weston mused, staring up at the empty pedestal.

"Whoever it was, couldn't be sure the lady, Miss Mitchell, would stand
there waiting for it to fall on her head."

"No.  But firstly, we don't know for whom it was intended.  Perhaps
Miss Mitchell, perhaps Mrs Constantine.  And secondly, it may only have
been meant to frighten, you know.  A nasty practical joke.  Perhaps
intended to fall on the roof of a car passing by."

Or perhaps, he thought but didn't say aloud, whoever it was knew I was
expected.  He might have gambled on Meredith waiting for me at the
gates so as to be able to talk to me before I got to the house.  If so,
it was a clever bit of reasoning.  But from the beginning he'd realised
they dealt here with someone very clever.

"Downright stupid," said Weston.

"For a joke, I mean.  He must be a real idiot.  It could have killed
someone!"

"Perhaps," said Markby, 'the joker would have considered that a
bonus!

" He paused and added, "And we don't know it isn't a woman."  He hadn't
meant to say that aloud, it had slipped out from his subconscious.

"Ah," said Weston, and fell silent for a while.  Then he said, "I'd
better talk to the lady who had the accident, if she's fit."

Markby conducted him back to the house and, presuming that Meredith
would still be in the conservatory, took him round the building and in
through the side door to the greenhouse.

Meredith was still there, but Rachel had gone, at which he was secretly
relieved.

"Blimey!"  said Weston with a low whistle, gazing at the aviary.

"Never seen anything like that!  Ruddy marvel!"  He walked to the wire
and peered at the canaries fluttering around inside.

"That's a pair of lizard canaries, those up there."  He pointed a
stubby forefinger.

"You know about them?"  Meredith asked.

"I've always been interested, but never had anything like this.  We got
the kids a budgie," said Weston.  "Not the same thing, though, is
it?"

He turned and grinned.

"How are you feeling, Miss?  Nasty accident, that."

"I'm feeling fine.  All I got were a few scratches.  Nothing to worry
about.

I did hear an odd noise which must have been the pineapple rocking
before it fell, and I think I must automatically have moved aside,
although I didn't realise what was going to happen, not consciously, if
you see what I mean."

Weston produced his notebook.

"Better let me get the whole story down."

"I'll leave you to it," Markby murmured.

"You don't need me."

He found Rachel in the hall by the telephone, her hand on the receiver
and a slight frown puckering her brow.

She looked up as he appeared and the frown was smoothed away.  She took
her hand from the receiver.  "Has the young man gone?  I hope he's not
going to keep coming back.  I mean, Meredith isn't hurt and Alex's
funeral's on my mind.  I do hope those flowers will be all right."

That she was more worried about the flowers than the fact that Meredith
had nearly met with a serious accident annoyed him.

"Sergeant Weston's taking Meredith's account of the incident at the
gate," he said loudly.

"I think I'll go over to the Lynstone Hotel and check in.  They're
expecting me.  I'd better sling my things in my room."

"On Sunday evening Mrs Pascoe leaves out a cold supper," he was told.

"We'll eat about seven."

"Don't wait on me.  Hawkins might have turned up by then, so I can't
say if I'll be free."

"I don't want him over here pestering me this evening."  Rachel's eyes
sparkled aggressively.

"I doubt he'll do that.  Be prepared to see him on the doorstep
tomorrow."

She tossed back her hair.

"He could at least wait till after the funeral!"  A thought struck
her.

"Will he want to attend that?"

"Certainly," Markby told her.

"It's customary for the investigating officer to attend the funeral of
the the deceased."  He'd almost said 'victim'.

"It makes no difference, I suppose," Rachel said.

"We shall be so few, it might even look better."  Her pretty features
gained a disconsolate expression which Markby found unexpectedly
touching.

"Cheer up, Rach!"  he said, "Soon be over.  The funeral, I mean.

You'll feel better when that's got through."

"Yes, I shall.  I told Meredith that.  Oh, well then, Alan.  If I don't
see you again this evening, I'll see you tomorrow."

There was a footstep behind them and both turned.

"Only me," said Meredith.

"I've told the sergeant my story and he's left.  Do I understand you're
leaving too, Alan?  " "Only to drive over to the hotel."

"Fine, then I'll come with you," Meredith offered.  The walk back will
do me good."  She saw he was going to object and added insistently,
"I've got to go out sometime.  I can't hide indoors for the rest of my
stay in case more bits of masonry drop on me!"

"It wasn't my fault!"  Rachel said firmly.

"The house has always been kept in tip-top condition.  I can't imagine
why no one saw that hideous pine cone thing was loose."

"Pineapple," Markby corrected automatically.

"I shall make sure Martin gets up there tomorrow and puts new cement
round the other one, anyway."  She paused.

"I wonder if I can claim on the house insurance."

Weston hadn't left the premises.  As they drove through the gates, they
saw the sergeant at the top of a ladder, inspecting the twin of the
fallen pineapple.  Markby slowed the car and opened the door to shout
out, "I'm going over to the hotel!"

"Right you are!"  shouted Weston from his perch, adding, "This one's a
bit wonky as well!  But there's no He caught sight of Meredith in the
car and amended whatever he had been going to say to, "There's nothing
else!"

"What's that mean?"  asked Meredith as they drove down Windmill Lane.

"What else could there have been?"

"He's just checking."

"You wouldn't be holding out on me, Alan?  Is there something I should
know?"

"All in good time.  You haven't seen anyone hanging That she was more
worried about the flowers than the fact that Meredith had nearly met
with a serious accident annoyed him.

"Sergeant Weston's taking Meredith's account of the incident at the
gate," he said loudly.

"I think I'll go over to the Lynstone Hotel and check in.  They're
expecting me.  I'd better sling my things in my room."

"On Sunday evening Mrs Pascoe leaves out a cold supper," he was told.

"We'll eat about seven."

"Don't wait on me.  Hawkins might have turned up by then, so I can't
say if I'll be free."

"I don't want him over here pestering me this evening."  Rachel's eyes
sparkled aggressively.

"I doubt he'll do that.  Be prepared to see him on the doorstep
tomorrow."

She tossed back her hair.

"He could at least wait till after the funeral!"  A thought struck
her.

"Will he want to attend that?"

"Certainly," Markby told her.

"It's customary for the investigating officer to attend the funeral of
the the deceased."  He'd almost said 'victim'.

"It makes no difference, I suppose," Rachel said.

"We shall be so few, it might even look better."  Her pretty features
gained a disconsolate expression which Markby found unexpectedly
touching.

"Cheer up, Rach!"  he said, "Soon be over.  The funeral, I mean.

You'll feel better when that's got through."

"Yes, I shall.  I told Meredith that.  Oh, well then, Alan.  If I don't
see you again this evening, I'll see you tomorrow."

There was a footstep behind them and both turned.

"Only me," said Meredith.

"I've told the sergeant my story and he's left.  Do I understand you're
leaving too, Alan?  " "Only to drive over to the hotel."

"Fine, then I'll come with you," Meredith offered.

"The walk back will do me good."

She saw he was going to object and added insistently, "I've got to go
out sometime.  I can't hide indoors for the rest of my stay in case
more bits of masonry drop on me!"

"It wasn't my fault!"  Rachel said firmly.

"The house has always been kept in tip-top condition.  I can't imagine
why no one saw that hideous pine cone thing was loose."

"Pineapple," Markby corrected automatically.

"I shall make sure Martin gets up there tomorrow and puts new cement
round the other one, anyway."  She paused.

"I wonder if I can claim on the house insurance."

Weston hadn't left the premises.  As they drove through the gates, they
saw the sergeant at the top of a ladder, inspecting the twin of the
fallen pineapple.  Markby slowed the car and opened the door to shout
out, "I'm going over to the hotel!"

"Right you are!"  shouted Weston from his perch, adding, "This one's a
bit wonky as well!  But there's no He caught sight of Meredith in the
car and amended whatever he had been going to say to, "There's nothing
else!"

"What's that mean?"  asked Meredith as they drove down Windmill Lane.

"What else could there have been?"

"He's just checking."

"You wouldn't be holding out on me, Alan?  Is there something I should
know?"

"All in good time.  You haven't seen anyone hanging around those gate
posts, by any chance?  Any stranger?  Someone acting a bit odd?  " He
was surprised when she answered, "Yes, on the night I arrived.  But not
climbing up and loosening the pineapples, which is what I suppose
Sergeant Weston meant!  But there was someone, a woman, standing by the
gate posts late in the evening.  I was going to bed and saw her from
the window.  She seemed interested in the house.  I told Rachel and she
thought it might have been Mrs Troughton."

Troughton?  Doesn't he run the hotel?  " "That's right.  He and his
wife lead separate lives from the same address.

I've not met her yet.  Rachel says she sometimes wanders about late and
is a little eccentric.  Something of a goer as well, apparently!  Mavis
at the hotel indicated the same, and suggested she was of
middle-eastern origin.  If true, might that be significant, do you
think?"

"Possibly."  Markby was musing over something else.  "Separate lives
from the same address.  Rachel and I did that."

"I don't want us to do it, you and I," Meredith said quietly.

"We shouldn't necessarily be like that."  He glanced at her.

"We more than likely should."

He supposed she was right.  His police career would always have first
call on his time.  She'd be commuting to London daily.  Their present
arrangement was probably the best in the circumstances.  He still
wished it could be different.

They'd reached Lynstone House Hotel.

"Another of 'em!"  said Markby, peering at the ornate frontage as he
drew up.

"Built by the same family."  In a lower voice, she warned, "This is
Troughton!"

The hotel owner had appeared in the doorway, bobbing and bowing.  His
marmoset eyes gleamed.

"Superintendent Hawkins?"

"No, Chief Inspector Markby."

"Wrong man, right occupation!  Never mind.  Come along in.  Your room's
ready!"  Troughton led them up the winding staircase.

"At least," Markby murmured, 'it means Hawkins isn't here yet and I can
get settled in first!  " The room was spacious with much ornamental
plaster- work around the cornices and central light-fitting.  At the
window, looking out at the gathering dusk, Markby observed, "Nice
grounds, but a bit of a jungle."

"Wait till you've had a proper look at Rachel's gardens.  Martin keeps
them beautifully."

"I fancy I've upset Martin."  He turned and leaned against the
windowsill with his arms folded.

"What else should I know that you haven't told me?"

Meredith hesitated.  He saw the debate in her mind mirrored in her
expressive hazel eyes.

"Nothing, really," she said at last.

"Hawkins is going to ask a lot more questions than I am!"

That clearly worried her.

"There's one little thing which might cause a problem.  It isn't
Rachel's fault.  There's a young man called Nevil James who's got a
crush on her.

There may have been some gossip locally and it could be that Hawkins
will hear it.  Rachel says Alex knew and didn't mind because it was
harmless.  But of course, now Alex is dead well, Nevil may have
unrealistic expectations."  He frowned.

"Then Rachel must put him off."

"She's trying to.  I think that's why we're here, you and I, really."

"Is it?  It might be partly why I'm here.  Why're you really here?"

Meredith had obviously been unprepared for so direct a question.  She
met his gaze steadily, however.

"Someone in London, it doesn't matter who, wanted me to ask around
about Alex.  I wasn't going to tell you, so please don't tell anyone
else that, especially not Hawkins!"

Markby was unable to conceal his incredulity and disapproval.

"What?

You let them talk you into this this cloak-and-dagger stuff!  You
agreed to do it?  You must be off your rocker!  " "Well, thank you for
the expression of confidence!  No, I didn't let them talk me into
anything.  I was asked and I agreed.  I admit, it would have been a
little awkward to have refused, but I could have done and, had I
thought strongly about it, I would."

Her jaw, mouth and eyes had acquired that obstinate expression he knew
so well.  He ought to leave it at that, but he was angry and worried
and couldn't stop himself from retorting, "Perhaps you ought to think
about it now!  Someone tried to brain you.  If Alex was the world's
most wanted man, let someone else find it out."

"As far as I've been able to tell, he was the world's most popular
man.

Or perhaps I've been asking the wrong people."  She put a hand on the
doorknob.

"And there's no need to go reading anything sinister into that
accident.  I had a bad scare.  But I suppose the stone thing was
loose.

" "No.  Someone rigged up a string-and-nails pulley."  He'd succeeded
in shocking her.

"That was something I wasn't going to tell you, not tonight while you
were still shaken up about it.  And for heaven's sake, don't tell
Rachel."

"I see."  Typically she didn't flap.  Instead he waited while she
thought it over.  Then she said, "But I haven't found out anything.

All I've done is chat generally to people and I can't imagine that
anyone found that a threat."

"Perhaps you asked the right person the right questions and didn't
realise it."  He frowned.

"Perhaps you ought not to walk back alone.

I'd better come along.  And tomorrow, first thing, phone your contact
in London and tell him you can't help any more."  The last instruction
had been a mistake.  The obstinacy returned to her face.

"I'll make my own mind up about that, thank you.  And I'll be perfectly
all right walking back to Malefis.  It'll take less than ten minutes
and it's not dark yet."

Meredith began to rue her bold words as soon as she stepped outside.

Twilight and overhanging trees made the hotel drive tenebrous.  The
shadows took on strange shapes and she fancied footsteps and suspicious
rustles behind and to either side of her as she walked down the middle
of it towards the main road.  She hurried on and, as she reached the
road entrance, a stocky figure turned in the gates, barring her path.

Meredith gasped then recognised him.

"Sergeant Weston!"  she said with a relief she couldn't keep from her
voice.  "He's not here yet Superintendent Hawkins, I mean," she added,
'if that's the person you've come to see."

"In that case, like me to walk you back to the other house, Miss?"

"Yes, please!"  She felt impelled to explain her keenness for his
company.

"The chief inspector told me about the nails and string."

"More likely rope," said Weston pedantically.

"String too thin.  But it's gone, that has.  Only the nails there.

Surprised he told you."

Weston sounded disapproving.

He left her by Malefis Abbey's front door.

"You don't want to worry about it, Miss," was his final admonition.

"Like as not it was a daft practical joke and the joker will have had
the fright of his life now.  He won't try anything else."

Rachel was back in the conservatory, standing before the aviary.  In
switching on the lights, she must have disturbed the birds which had
settled for the night, because some fluttered in disoriented fashion
from branch to branch of the imprisoned orange tree while others
huddled defensively in the shadows at the back of the cage.

"I suppose it wouldn't be any good releasing them outdoors," she said
meditatively as Meredith joined her.

"The canaries?  They'd have no idea how to fend for themselves!  It'd
be too cold in the winter.  The other birds would probably kill
them."

"How cruel the world is out there."  Rachel let one fingernail run down
the wire mesh of the aviary.

"How safe these little creatures are in their cage.  Prisoners but
safe.

Poor Alex felt safe in England."

"Had he any particular reason for that?"  Meredith asked cautiously.

Rachel hunched her slim shoulders.

"He was born in the Lebanon.  He moved to Cyprus because he was afraid
of being kidnapped and held to ransom by one gang of thugs or another,
to say nothing of being blown sky- high in the street by a car-bomb.

Can you imagine what it must be like living with that kind of danger
every day?

Never knowing, always having to take precautions before you step out of
your own door, hiring bodyguards.  He loved Lynstone because it was so
peaceful and nothing ever happened.  He called it the " quiet of the
English countryside"."

She turned and stared Meredith full in the face.

"I know why that awful man, Hawkins, is coming.  He thinks someone in
Lynstone is responsible for Alex's death.  But that's just
ridiculous!

Why should anyone here want it?  You all think I should know the
reason, don't you?  You, Alan and the superintendent.  But I don't,
truly, I don't!"

It had been a long day, and there was nothing to be done for the
moment.

When Meredith had gone, Markby lay down on his bed, put his hands
behind his head, and set himself to mull over such meagre information
as he had.  But the drowsiness he'd earlier fought off now overtook him
and he dozed off.  He was awoken by an imperious double rap at the
door.

Markby sat up too quickly and felt a momentary confusion.  The room was
quite dark now.  The same impatient hand knocked at the door again, a
succession of raps this time.

"Wait a minute!"  he called, his hand fumbling for the switch of the
bedside lamp.

He opened the door to find Hawkins standing in the corridor outside.

He marched past Markby and took up an aggressive stance in the middle
of the room.

"What are you doing down here, Chief Inspector?"

"Come for the funeral!"  said Markby immediately.

"Funeral's not till Tuesday!"

"So, I'm helping my ex-wife out with arrangements."

"I know what you think!"  Hawkins advanced on him, one bony figure
stabbing the air.

"You think whoever done for Constantine came from Lynstone.  As it
happens, I think so too, but that's no reason for you to imagine you'll
be working with me on this!  I won't brook interference in my
inquiries!"

"It's not my intention to do that.  My visit here is private."

"So you'll be going off back to Bamford as soon as the funeral's over,
Tuesday?"

"No, not necessarily.  I've told Mrs Constantine I'll stay for a few
days.

Miss Mitchell's here too."

Hawkins wasn't one to beat about the bush.

"I don't want you here.  I don't want you under my feet.  I don't want
you prying around.  I hear you've already commandeered Sergeant
Weston!"

"I'd hardly have used that word.  I requested him and I had a good
reason.  I wanted someone to take a look at the wall and the gate post
before nightfall.

I asked for Weston because he'd be reporting to you.  I consider I
acted properly sir!"  he remembered to add.

"You're still treading very near the line by just being here!  You're a
material witness, Markby.  Even if I wanted your help, which I don't, I
couldn't ask for it."

"I've taken leave entitlement to come here."

Markby said obstinately.

"As far as I'm concerned I'm on holiday, and what I do in my own time
is my affair.  I'm here at Mrs Constantine's request.  I've every
intention of staying, especially if Miss Mitchell is in any danger."

"She can keep her nose out of it, too," said Hawkins disagreeably.

"I reckon she's been asking questions, and that's why chummy tried to
brain her with a lump of carved stone.  I won't have it, Markby.  "
Hawkins advanced on him.

"I won't have another ruddy corpse on my hands!"

"Don't worry," Markby said firmly.

"I'll make sure of that."

But, as it happened, they were being overoptimistic.

Chapter Thirteen mrs james set down the telephone receiver and scowled
at it.  Then she made her way back to the kitchen where Nevil sat
finishing his breakfast.  He glanced up but didn't ask who had called,
just carried on scraping a thin layer of butter over slightly charred
toast.

His mother sat down heavily and put her work-calloused hands on the
table top.

"Mavis!"  she informed him.

Nevil bit into the toast and grunted as it showered crumbs over his
chin.

"They're here, both of 'em."  When Nevil still didn't answer, she added
irritably, "Both coppers!  Staying at the hotel.  Say something, for
goodness' sake!

Don't just sit there munching like a blasted squirrel!"

Nevil swallowed.

"What do you expect me to say, Ma?"

"I don't know!  But don't sit there pretending you aren't interested!

Just remember they might get interested in you\ You keep away from
Malefis, Nevil!  " "I was going to anyway!"  He narrowed his eyes
behind the thick lenses.

"I can't go over there as long as Rachel's got that Meredith person
staying with her."

"And stay away after that, when the Mitchell woman's gone!"  Mrs James
crammed the lid back on the jar of marmalade.

"I must say, that Meredith seemed to me a sensible sort.  Not the
bubble-headed kind I'd have expected to be a pal of Rachel's.  I'm
certain she's got more reason for coming here than just to pat Rachel's
shoulder!  Why is she nosing around?  And what about this ex-husband
who just happens to be another copper!

What can they want here?  The poor blighter was bumped off in London.

" Nevil pushed his plate away.

"I don't know, Ma.  Why keep asking me?"

As she glowered at him, disliking his off-hand tone, he went on, "Just
because you don't like Rachel, doesn't mean other people feel the same
way.

You might not have noticed it, but plenty of people like Rachel a
lot."

ThenI' snapped his mother.

"Not only men!  There's absolutely no reason why Rachel shouldn't have
women friends.  All right, perhaps Meredith isn't quite the type I'd
have expected either, and as for this Markby, if he really has been
married to Rachel..."

Nevil's complexion grew unattractively pink and blotched.

"Well, then he's got no business hanging around distressing her!  I
wish they'd both go back where they came from.  Rachel doesn't need
them.  She's got me!"  His eyes gleamed defiantly at his mother.

Stung, she retorted, "The person people liked was Alex!  But you
didn't, did you?  And the police will learn it!"

"So?  Why should I have liked him?  He was always so bloody superior
when he talked to me.  Sometimes I could have sworn he was laughing at
me."

"He probably was!"  she said brutally.

"He could see you were making a fool of yourself over his wife!  They
probably had a good laugh over you together!"

As had happened occasionally before, she knew she had gone too far.  He
didn't reply, but sullen, suppressed anger welled up in her son's face,
making him suddenly appear a stranger to her, someone she didn't know
and couldn't be sure she could trust.  It terrified her and filled her
with a dreadful, nameless doubt.  She heaved a deep sigh.

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you, New?"  He still didn't bother to
answer and she muttered, "No, I suppose not.  I don't know.  I'm
beginning to wonder if I know you as well as I thought I did."

She had a confused impulse to tell him how much she loved him and how
desperately she wanted to prevent his being hurt.  To see him unhappy
caused her to feel a physical pain.  To think he might be in any kind
of danger made her want to rush out and fight it off.

But there was an invisible barrier between them when it came to matters
emotional.  She had never spoken to her son in what she would have
called a sloppy way, even when he was a little child.  It was too late
to start now, even if she'd known how to do it.  She told herself that
Nevil knew, surely, how deep her affection for him ran?  He must do.

He couldn't be unaware of her love and loyalty?

Molly pushed her chair back and stood up.

"I'm going out to the kennels."

When she'd gone, Nevil cleared the table, stacking the dirty dishes in
the sink and putting the butter and milk back in the fridge.  He didn't
wash up, because somehow it had become a habit that Gillian did all the
mugs and plates together after the coffee break.  Both Nevil and his
mother murmured vaguely that this saved the hot water, but both knew it
was symptomatic of their attitude towards Gillian, Instinct told them
she was the sort of person who always cleared up after others, so they
let her get on with it and, if they felt guilty, managed to quash the
feeling.

Besides, Nevil had something else to do while he had the house to
himself.

He went to the phone and dialled.

"It's me," he said in the way people do when they know their voice will
be recognised.

"Look, it's all getting too complicated.  I need to talk to you."

The voice at the other end sounded tinnily.

"I don't care!"  Nevil's voice rose.

"I must see you!  You know why.

You know what about.  Yes, I know the police are here but I don't
care!

That's why I've got to see you, talk to you.  I'm-' Nevil paused and
then muttered hoarsely -"I'm scared."

Markby and Hawkins breakfasted at adjacent tables in the hotel dining
room, nodding polite acknowledgment to one another.  Like a pair of
dowagers, Markby thought, amused.

Later, he saw Hawkins leave the hotel on foot, presumably for
Malefis.

Some ten minutes later, Markby left the hotel himself for the same
destination.  But his intention wasn't to call at the house.  It was to
take a walk round its gardens and, if possible, have a talk with
Martin, the gardener.

He got the chance sooner than he'd anticipated.  When he arrived at the
gates he found a ladder propped against the pillar which carried the
intact pineapple.  At the top of it, Martin was busily trowel ling in
fresh cement to prevent the stone fruit becoming dislodged as its
companion had been.

"Police give you permission to work here?"  Markby called up.

Martin scowled down at him.

"The superintendent said I could do it.

Mrs Constantine is afraid it will fall on someone and make a legal
problem for her!  I understand I am not to touch the other post.

Anyway, the other pineapple is broken."

"OK.  I thought I'd like to look round the gardens, if nobody
objects."

"Of course!"  said Martin discouragingly.

"Miss Mitchell tells me they're beautifully kept."

"I am a trained horticulturist."  Martin was not to be mollified by
flattery.

His tone implied that Markby was being impertinent by suggesting that
the gardens might be anything other than immaculate.

"I have my diploma."

"Fine.  I'll leave you to your work."  Markby walked on, reflecting
that the French might be famous for Gallic charm, but if they set
themselves to be disagreeable, no one could hold a candle to them.

But the gardens were immaculate, so perhaps Martin was right to be a
bit touchy about them.  Markby walked around them, prey to feelings of
envy and gloom because his chances of ever having time to garden on
this scale were slight.  Perhaps he'd chosen the wrong career.  Like
Martin, he ought have gone in for horticulture.  Looking back now, he
didn't know why he hadn't.

Except that, at the time, it had never occurred to him to make a living
out of what had then seemed a pastime.

At the furthest point from the house, where the gardens abutted fields,
a small area had been left wild, it could only be deliberately.  There
was a little pond and some rushes and, nearby, a wooden seat.  He sat
on it and spent a pleasant half-hour watching the birds and
squirrels.

The sun was shining this morning and, although it was still early and
the air cool, its rays were warm enough in this sheltered spot to melt
away worries.  He raised his face and closed his eyes.  He felt
curiously at peace here.

There was a footstep and he opened his eyes.  Martin had finished his
repair work and was standing a little way from him, watching him.

When he saw Markby looking at him, the gardener said, "Mr Constantine
liked to sit there."

"I can understand that," Markby said.

"You got on well with him, did you?"

"Of course.  Everyone did.  He was very kind to me."

"Congratulations on the condition of the gardens, by the way.  These
must be amongst the best private gardens I've ever seen."

"Thank you."  Martin thawed a little and smiled.  But before Markby
could cash in on the improved relations, they were disturbed.

They heard a cough.  Martin turned his head.  Markby looked past him
and saw that a third person approached.  It was Hawkins who was making
his way over the damp grass towards them, an expression of mistrust on
his thin features.

"Want to have a word with you, lad," he said to Martin.  "Yes, sir."

Martin stared woodenly at him.  Hawkins's gaze slid to Markby.

"Not here.  You go on back to the garage.  I'll see you there."

When Martin had gone, Hawkins returned his attention to Markby.

"Sunbathing?"  he asked sarcastically.

"Something like that.  I've been admiring the gardens."

"I hate bloody gardening!"  said Hawkins with unlooked- for venom.

"When I was a kid, my old man had an allotment.  We all had to spend
our Saturdays weeding and watering and all the rest of it.  If we
didn't, we didn't get any pocket money.  He made us work for it, too!

He was very keen on double-digging.  Ever done any double-digging?

Ruddy torture.  I tell you, it put me off gardens for life!  " "That's
a shame."

Hawkins shrugged and walked over to the pool to peer into its grey
depths.

"Might have a few newts in there."  In a leap of subject Markby
recognised as a take-'em-by-surprise technique, Hawkins went on, "That
gardener got anything to say for himself?"

"You interrupted!"  Markby replied with some asperity.  "Another ten
minutes and he might have done."

"Think he knows something about his employer we don't?"

"He was very grateful to Constantine for giving him the job.  He
describes him as kind.  I don't think you'll get Martin to tell you
anything about Constantine which would reflect badly on the
deceased."

"Oh, he was bloody popular, all right," Hawkins grumbled.

"We've been digging, but if there's any dirt, we've yet to find it.

Generous towards charities, honest in his business deals, happily
married.

Quite a pillar of the community!  Everyone's got to have a skeleton in
the cupboard somewhere.  But if he had, the cupboard door's locked and
I can't find the key."  Hawkins paused.

"They've no children, of course, and there are suggestions that the
wife may have had a roving eye.  If so, it seems the husband didn't
object.  There may be a lead there."

Markby grunted.

"Silly flirtation!"

"Wassat?"  Hawkins turned his narrow head on its long thin neck,
reminding Markby of a tortoise.

"I think she set too great a store by her marriage to rock the boat."

Markby gestured towards the view of Malefis across the gardens.

"Look what she had to lose."

"I need a lead," Hawkins retorted pettishly.

"Can you suggest a better one?"

"His change of name.  I still think he was trying to tell me about it
just before he died.  Why was that important to him?"

"We got in touch with the Cypriot authorities, but there's nothing to
suggest he changed it for other than business reasons.  Checking in the
Lebanon, given all the turmoil over the years, is impossible.

Just add it to the list of things we don't know!  " Hawkins rolled his
eyes heavenwards.

"I asked the wife.  She admits she knew he had changed his name but it
was long before they met.  She couldn't remember now what his original
name was.

I reminded her and she turned those big green eyes on me and said, "Oh,
yes, that was it!  So why are you asking me, Superintendent?"  Hawkins
hissed.

"I can't make up my mind whether she's daffy, devious, or just thinks
I'm being impertinent.  She puts on a lady-of-the-manor act when I talk
to her."

Ha!  thought Markby with a certain glee.  Rachel's seen Hawkins off
with no problem.  Now Hawkins thinks I might do better.  That's why
he's suddenly sociable.  Wittering on about newts and double-digging,
indeed!

With elaborate unconcern, Hawkins asked, "She hasn't said anything
about it to you, I suppose?  She's got to know more than she's
saying.

Why is she holding out?  That's what I'd like to know!  " Markby didn't
want to be forced into the role of Rachel's defender, but he felt he
ought to remind Hawkins of Rachel's bereaved status.

"You can't expect her, in the circumstances, to be concentrating on
answering every question.  The funeral's tomorrow.  It's going to be
quite an ordeal for her.

" "Oh yes, I'll see you there, I suppose.  Got your black tie?"

Hawkins heaved a sigh.

"Brought mine.  I just wish I had a river for every funeral I've
attended.

Every murder victim, every villain sent on his way.  I've seen more
coffins into the ground or into the fiery furnace than I can
remember.

I even attended a burial at sea once.  The water was choppy and the
boat going all over the place.  Padre nearly went over the side and the
widow was seasick.

Oh, well, all in the line of duty.  I'll go and see what the Frenchie's
got to say for himself."

Hawkins took stock of the wild garden.

"The rest of the grounds are kept neat enough, but they seem to have
missed this bit out.  Funny place to put a seat, amongst all these
weeds."

"It's called a Nature Garden."

"Thought that was something to do with nudists!"  said Hawkins.  His
lean features contorted in an extraordinary expression, which Markby
realised was meant to be a grin.

Hawkins had cracked a joke.

Meredith had kept her word and driven into town to check that the
flowers would be as ordered.  It was rather a waste of time, she
thought, because florists were generally efficient when it came to
funeral tributes.  But it would set Rachel's mind at rest, and she was
glad to get away from Lynstone for a while, particularly if it meant
she wouldn't have to see Hawkins this morning.  It also gave her the
opportunity to phone in a progress report to Foster without fear of
anyone overhearing.

Alan's anger that she should have agreed to oblige

Foster's department niggled, especially because she felt he was
probably right.  She should have mistrusted Foster's casual description
of what was involved, and firmly refused to play the role of Wooden
Horse.  A cracked skull was poor reward for doing someone else's job
for them!

As it happened, the visit to the florists did turn up one slightly
surprising fact.  The funeral obviously wasn't going to be quite the
very small private affair Rachel had indicated.  The florist assured
Meredith that the Malefis flowers would go to the undertaker's, "With
all the others."

"Others?  How many others?"

"Oh, quite a few.  A dozen a least.  People are still phoning in orders
for the Constantine funeral."

Thoughtful, Meredith made her way out of the shop and hunted down a
public telephone.  She felt uncomfortably obvious in the call box as
she punched out Foster's number.  It seemed as though everyone who
passed by peered in to see who was there.  That was only imagination.

Her nerves were less under control than she'd have liked.

"Oh, Meredith!  How are you getting on down there?"  asked Foster
cheerily.

"As well as can be expected, as the saying is.  The funeral is
tomorrow.

There's no family due to come, but I think quite a few other people
might turn up."

"Just keep an eye open.  It looks as though you're going to draw a
blank, though."  He made a hissing noise down the line.

"Well, it was never more than a longshot."

"There is one thing.  It's just possible someone thinks I've been
showing too much curiosity.  On Sunday morning I was nearly knocked out
cold by a stone pineapple."

There was a perceptible pause.

"Sorry?  Don't think I caught that right," Foster said.

"Stone pineapple.  A carving on top of a gate post."

She fancied she heard a snort of suppressed laughter and exclaimed
angrily, "It wasn't funny!  Someone rigged it up with a rope to fall on
my head!"

This time the silence lasted longer.

"I see."  Foster's voice had changed.

"Look, the last thing I want is for you to get hurt.  After the
funeral, just clear out of that place."

"It might not be so easy.  Superintendent Hawkins is here, and I'm sure
Mrs Constantine expects me to stay until he's gone."

"Watch out for yourself," Foster sounded worried.

As well he might do!  thought Meredith vindictively as she left the
phone-box.

She wandered round the town staring in shop windows and putting off the
moment of return to Lynstone.  In the window of a delicatessen, a row
of glazed pottery bowls held various kinds of continental pates.

She'd gathered from Rachel that on return from the funeral the mourners
were to be given a cold buffet at the house.  Perhaps a contribution
would be useful.  On impulse, Meredith went in and bought a whole duck
pate.  It was in a white bowl with dull blue leaves and
mustard-coloured flowers roughly painted on it.  The contents looked
very nice, decorated with two red berries and a pair of dark green
bay-leaves all shiny with jelly.

She realised as she drove back to Lynstone that probably Mrs Pascoe
would be insulted, seeing the offer of a whole bowl of pate as an
implied criticism of her catering estimates.  But she had to hand it
over now since she could hardly keep the thing in her room.

Meredith sidled into the kitchen with the bowl cradled in her arms and
mumbled, "I thought this might be useful."

"Thank you.  Miss!"  said Mrs Pascoe starchily.

"I always make my own.

But I'll put it in the fridge.  If we run short, it'll come in handy.

" The slight emphasis on the word 'if told Meredith that, as she'd
feared, Mrs Pascoe had taken offence.  She mumbled a further incoherent
excuse and began to retire.

In the doorway she had a burst of inspiration.

"I really bought it for the bowl."

"Did you?"  Mrs Pascoe eyed it with mild surprise.  The bowl wasn't
even pretty, coarse pottery, scrappily painted in dreary colours and
badly glazed.

"Oh, well then, I'll keep it for you."

"I thought it'd be just the thing to plant some hyacinths in, next
winter," Meredith insisted.

Amazing what the mind came up with under pressure.

Chapter Fourteen tuesday dawned fine and bright.  A warm spring sun
shone down on them as they set out by shiny black undertaker's
limousine to bury Alex Constantine in an English country churchyard.

Rachel was a model of black-clad chic.

"Designer mourning," thought Meredith unkindly, and was immediately
assailed by guilt.

She regarded herself doubtfully in the wardrobe mirror.  A navy-blue
skirt and blazer were the most funereal garments she had with her.

They'd have to do.  In her consular days, when attending funerals and
remembrance ceremonies had been part of the job, she'd travelled with a
black coat and a hat.  But the coat had been donated to a jumble sale
long ago, and she no longer owned a hat.  The mild breeze caught at her
hair and blew it around disrespect fully She supposed a headscarf was
out of the question.

Alan had a hat, though, a soft-brimmed one.  Meredith was almost
betrayed into uttering her dismay aloud when she saw it.  He arrived
from the hotel with Superintendent Hawkins to join the main cortege,
both dressed as she supposed policemen did for burials, in dark suits,
black ties and hats.  For them, too, it was part of the job.

Meredith found their appearance unsettling, resembling a pair of
bailiffs.

A small crowd had gathered at the churchyard gate.  Meredith assumed
they were curious villagers; amongst them she noticed Naseby's
assistant.  The sunlight glittered on her gold nose-stud, and her mouth
was slightly open.

She was picking strands of windswept frizzy hair from her eyes.

Meredith wondered who was minding the till at the Mini-Mart.  Perhaps
the girl had just locked up the shop and wandered across for ten
minutes to see what was going on.  Not much happened in Church
Lynstone.

As it turned out, there was one person there who wasn't a villager.

As they took their places behind the coffin, a middle-aged man appeared
from behind a gravestone and efficiently took a photograph.

He then climbed over the low wall, mounted a motorbike which Meredith
hadn't noticed, pulled on a crash helmet, and roared off down the
road.

It all happened so quickly that none of them reacted in time to
interfere.

Markby muttered furiously, "Press!  Wish I'd seen him in time."

"Nothing to worry about," said the worldly Hawkins.  "Only one of 'em,
after all.  When they hunt in a pack, that's when they cause
trouble."

Meredith whispered to Rachel, "Sorry about that, Ray."

"Doesn't matter," Rachel said stonily.

"He's gone now."

Meredith wondered whether she meant the photographer or Alex.  The
pall-bearers moved off with their burden, and Rachel walked steadily
after them towards the church porch, the villagers falling back
respectfully to either side as the coffin passed.

Inside, the church was really much nicer than suggested by the glimpse
Meredith had managed earlier through a window.

Tapestry kneelers suggested the Mothers' Union had been hard at work.

Their busy hands had probably polished the brass memorials on the walls
to gleam like gold.  The organist, unseen in his loft, played softly.

Rachel, Meredith and Markby all sat together in a pew at the front of
the church as betokened 'family'.  It made her feel sorrier for Rachel
than she had at any time since Alex's death.  A former school friend
and a former husband were poor substitutes for a crowd of relatives.

Markby had taken off the hat in church and set it down on the pew
between himself and Meredith.  It made her think of Tristan, placing
his sword between himself and the sleeping Iseult.  As a symbol, that
had certainly been a misleading one.

She glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder.  The little church was
quite filling up.  She recognised the two elderly men who had been in
the hotel bar, each now accompanied by a plump wife.  There were
several other couples in similar mould.  These must be the neighbours,
she thought, those who lived in the other large, secluded, detached
houses around Lynstone.  Troughton was there, too, accompanied by Mavis
Tyrrell, who was in a rusty black coat and shiny black straw hat.  The
elusive Mrs Troughton hadn't surfaced.  A pity, because Meredith was
curious to see that lady and discover whether she had been the
mysterious figure by the gate on the evening of her arrival.

There was, however, an unknown young woman with shoulder-length ginger
hair and a bottle-green jacket who seemed to be on her own.

Meredith wondered who she was.  Then, as she watched, Nevil James
walked in and took a seat at the back.  He caught Meredith's eye and
stared at her defiantly.  Meredith turned her head back.  It would be
interesting to see whether Nevil's nerve extended to returning to the
house for the funeral lunch.

There was a whiff of perfume.  Rachel had taken out a handkerchief.

Alan, in a gesture which perhaps surprised himself as much as it did
anyone else, put an arm round the widow's shoulder and murmured, "Hold
out, Rach.

It's nearly over now."

They got through the brief service and droned their way raggedly
through "Abide with Me', surely the most doleful hymn ever written.

Outside in the churchyard again, they reassembled near the freshly dug
grave to await the coffin.  The mud had been decorously disguised with
a cloth representing grass.  It was bright green and very plastic.  All
the floral tributes about which Rachel had worried so much had turned
up as ordered, and the shop had made them up very well.  The widow's
own tribute had been borne into the church on top of the coffin.  It
had been composed of red roses and carnations with bunches of
gold-edged black ribbon, not perhaps in the best possible taste by some
standards but, Meredith suspected, completely in the taste of the late
Alex.

The rector, a thin, balding, colour less man, was talking to Rachel in
a hushed undertone.  In his address he'd managed to wax quite
enthusiastic on the subject of the deceased's virtues.  Alex, it
seemed, had given generously to the steeple repair fund.  Foster had
mentioned that Alex had given large sums to charity.  To give to the
local cause in Lynstone had been a shrewd move.  It would have been
much appreciated.

Meredith moved to the back of the small crowd and found herself
standing by Mavis Tyrrell.

"Such a lovely day!"  said Mavis in a stage whisper, perfectly audible
all round.  Without any intention of irony, she added, "Pity Mr
Constantine can't be here to enjoy it."  She blew her nose noisily.

He was there, in so far as he could be.  The pallbearers had arrived.

They removed the roses from the casket and placed them by the
graveside.  As they struggled to lower the coffin into the hole, it
tilted and the sunlight caught the brass plaque.

Meredith found herself thinking about the name on that plaque.  No one
had yet satisfactorily explained why Georges Wahid had deemed it
necessary to change his name to Alex Constantine.  The more she thought
about it, the more it seemed to Meredith that the mystery of his death
was connected directly with the mystery of the change of his
identity.

Why should a man do such a thing?  Nor had it been the only change he'd
made.  He'd twice changed his domicile, leaving Lebanon firstly for
Cyprus and then for Britain.  He had, along the way, also changed his
nationality.  Georges Wahid had effectively created a brand new person:
Alex Constantine.  It had to be that he was covering his tracks by all
this change.  Had he feared someone that much?

Feared that person might find him one day and exact vengeance?  For
what?

She didn't know.  But it looked to her as if that someone had found
Alex in the end; and sent him to his grave.

She watched Rachel teeter down the wooden plank beside the cloth-draped
excavation.  Markby touched her arm and she realised that he meant her
to go next.

Obediently, Meredith followed behind Rachel, stooping to pick up her
small amount of damp, sticky soil and throw it into the hole, where it
landed with a splatter on the brass plaque.  It obliterated the name.

Alex Constantine, in all senses, was disappearing for ever beneath the
earth.

Gone but not forgotten, she thought.  At least, not yet forgotten.  In
time, we're all forgotten, or remembered only as a distorted legend for
some notoriety in life.  Death took care of reality like a damp sponge
wiping chalk marks from a blackboard.

Her duty done, she retreated and moved away from the main group a
little.  It placed her beside the ancient tombstone with the mortuary
verse which had so impressed her on her previous visit.

"As I am, so shall ye bee!"  It underlined her melancholy thoughts.

Alex was dead and that was the end of it.  Whatever he'd feared, he
need fear it no longer.  No more running.  Only the peace of the
tomb.

Meredith looked up and across the tombstone to the far side of the
churchyard.  Here they were in the shadow thrown by the church, but
over there was bright sunlight and, standing in it, a woman.

Meredith drew in her breath with a gasp.  This was certainly the woman
she'd seen that evening by the gates of Malefis Abbey.  A colleague of
the motorcyclist cameraman, covering the funeral?  But it wasn't
someone from the newspapers, she was sure.  The dress was too formal.

No notes were being recorded.  Meredith looked for Alan, hoping to
catch his eye and draw attention to the stranger.  But he was standing
with head lowered in respect and she was unsuccessful.  She looked back
at the watching figure.

Intervening headstones cut off the lower part of the woman's body, but
Meredith could see the top half clearly.  She wore, as Meredith did,
navy blue.  Meredith recognised the dress with the white, Quaker-like
collar, now teamed with a broad-brimmed hat which shaded her face.

Shoulder- length brown hair brushed the collar, and the woman's hands
were clasped in front of her holding two long lily flowers, not bound
up in any kind of bouquet, but simply two separate blooms.  She carried
no purse or shoulder bag "That's odd," Meredith thought.

"A hat but no kind of purse."

And what was she doing over there?  Why didn't she join the funeral
party?

The lilies indicated she had come here to mourn Alex, but she hadn't
been in church.

Suddenly Meredith felt a stab of inexplicable fear.  That still,
silent, respectably dressed figure among the tombstones might have
materialised out of the ancient earth itself.  Could it be that only
Meredith herself could see her?  Had no one else noticed?

Meredith looked back at the group by the grave.  Mavis Tyrrell was
scattering her tribute of soil on Alex's coffin.  She used a methodical
back-and-forth movement, as if dredging flour over pastry.

No one was looking this way.

The woman was still there when Meredith turned her head back.  A spurt
of annoyance pushed away the fear.  Meredith raised her hand and
beckoned to the woman to join them.

The figure moved.  The woman put her hand to her hat.  There was
something familiar about the gesture which, just at this moment,
Meredith couldn't place.  It niggled annoyingly at her mind, a sliver
of lost memory.

The desire to solve the riddle became overwhelming.

Meredith slipped away from the burial party and began to walk across
the uneven turf towards the watcher.

At once the woman turned away and began to hurry towards the little
gate which led into a lane running down the side of the churchyard.

In all decency, Meredith couldn't run, and by the time she'd reached
the gate, the stranger had vanished.  She must have turned left, down
the lane.

Otherwise she'd have found herself entering the main street and been
visible over the churchyard's front wall.

Meredith also turned left.  The lane led downhill steeply between high
banks and directly into a spinney.  On either side the tangled, untidy
trunks and branches of native woodland formed impenetrable walls.

About the bases of the trees grew nettles and brambles.

Meredith's footsteps echoed noisily off the rough road surface and
reverberated from the walls of vegetation.  But when she paused and
listened, she couldn't hear any footsteps from the woman she was sure
must be ahead of her.  All she could hear were noises from the spinney,
the crack of twigs, a rustle in the branches, the nutter of birds'
wings.  She felt that eyes watched her from the safety of the
undergrowth.  The woman had vanished completely.

This was a hostile place, and she was an intruder on it.  Meredith
turned back and gave a squeak of alarm.

She hadn't noticed Alan Markby detach himself from the mourners and
follow her.  But he was waiting a little behind and uphill from her,
silhouetted on the skyline.  He'd put on his hat again.

"You scared me," she called out, adding, 'do take off that awful hat!

You look like the Mafia!  " "It's my policeman's funeral hat."  But he
took it off and held it to his chest as she walked towards him.

"What are you doing down here?  I saw you slip away."

"There was a woman..."  Meredith said lamely.  She turned and gestured
down the empty lane.

"I think she must have gone down there.  Did you see her in the
churchyard?

She was standing alone on the far side, by that little gate."

He shook his head.

"Sorry, didn't see anyone.  Down there?"  He indicated the road
ahead.

"She must have moved quickly."  He glanced back at her.

"You look a bit pale.  You all right?"

"She was there!"  Meredith heard herself insist.

"We'd better go back.  Rachel will be wondering where we are."  He held
out his hand.

She took it, glad of another human touch.

"I did see her, Alan.

What's more, she's the one I saw watching the house the night I
arrived.  I wish I."  Meredith wrinkled her forehead.

"Something else worrying you?"

"Yes, but I don't know what it is.  There's something I'm trying to
remember.

It's awful when something is locked in your memory and you can't call
it up when you want it."

"It'll surface by itself when you're not trying."  They had reached the
little gate.  Alan dropped her hand to release the catch, holding it
open for her to pass through.

"Let me know if you see her again.

If she's no business hanging around, the least we can do for Rachel is
chase her away."

"Yes."  She glanced back uneasily, then turned a belligerent gaze on
him.

"You do believe I really saw someone, don't you?"

"Of course I do.  But it'll turn out to be a villager, like the ones
who were round the lych-gate when we arrived.  Or else a coffin-chaser
who read of Alex's death in the papers.  Some people have odd
hobbies.

Attending funerals is by no means the weirdest!  " "Precisely!  She had
come to attend the funeral.  She was smartly dressed and carried
flowers, lilies.  But why no bag or purse?"

"No worldly goods?"  Markby said lightly.

They had reached Alex's grave, surrounded by the floral tributes in a
garish display of colour.  The mourners had moved off and were by the
lych-gate, leaving the coffin in the bottom of the hole looking
desolate and abandoned.

Rachel was standing by the black limousine, looking towards them
impatiently.

She gestured to them to hurry.

"I do wish," Meredith said slowly, 'that you hadn't said that."  Mrs
Pascoe had set out a splendid array of cold dishes and salads.

But Meredith noted without surprise that her bowl of duck pate wasn't
amongst the offerings.

Away from the churchyard, the mourners were showing signs of reaction
to all the solemnity.  The buzz of chatter was quite sprightly.  The
plump ladies had cornered Rachel and were expressing forceful
condolences.  Meredith found herself by the ginger-haired girl.

"Penny Staunton!"  said the girl.

"Doctor's wife.  My husband would have come but he's got surgery.  He'd
have liked to pay his respects but he's just too busy to take the time
off.  I never actually met Alex Constantine, only Rachel, but I have
been in this house before."

She whispered the last words with a breathless reverence for their
imposing surroundings rather than the solemn occasion.

"Your husband was called when Alex had his heart attack, was he?  Or
didn't that happen here?"  Meredith asked, wryly amused but curious.

"Oh, yes!  At the end of last summer.  Alex had just got back from a
business trip abroad.  Rachel phoned us at about eleven at night.  When
Pete got here she was in a terrible flap.  He sent Alex into the local
hospital by ambulance to be on the safe side.  Later on, Alex saw a
London specialist.  I can't get over it, you know.  Alex being
murdered, I mean!"  Penny gave a little gasp.

"Well, honestly, just look at that!  Nevil!"

Nevil had plucked up courage to come after all.  He stood by the door
managing to look both furtive and determined.  No one spoke to him.

"Bit embarrassing that," murmured Penny confidentially.  "I mean, there
was nothing in it.  Just rumour.  But it is a bit tactless."

Penny herself wouldn't have won any prizes for tact, Meredith
thought.

But such people have their uses.  Meredith said, "He's been helping
Rachel with the canaries.  Have you seen the aviary?"

"Oh yes!  It's beautiful!  This whole house is just lovely.

Personally, I'm very glad that Rachel has someone to help her out.  But
you know, people do gossip so.  Rachel's such a beauty and Nevil is
unattached and well, this is a small place."

Nevil had moved to the table and was helping himself to some food.

Mavis Tyrrell was talking to him.

"Everyone knows," Penny went on fervently, 'that Alex and Rachel were
just devoted to one another!  " Markby and Hawkins, by some unspoken
mutual agreement, had moved to the back of the room where they stood
together, side by side, watching the throng.

Markby held a glass of wine.  Hawkins had a plate of cold chicken and
ham and prodded at it with a fork.

"Funny sort of turn-out for a chap like Constantine," he observed.

"In what way?"  Markby sipped at his wine and gazed curiously at Nevil,
who was clearly trying to catch Rachel's eye without much luck.

"No big-wigs.  Just neighbours.  No family."

"He originated from the Lebanon."

"Where's her family, then?"

"I don't think Rachel has many relatives."

"Oh yes, you'd know, wouldn't you?"  mumbled Hawkins through a mouthful
of chicken.  Perhaps by way of distracting attention from his faux pas,
he went on, "Got an identification on that footprint you found in the
bushes by the wall."

"Oh yes?"  Markby turned his head sharply.

"Well, when I say identification ... It was almost certainly made by
the right boot of a pair of wellies kept in the garage.  They belonged
to Constantine.  He kept them there because sometimes, when he came
home, he'd slip them on and walk round the grounds before going into
the house.  They weren't in a cupboard.  Just standing by the garage
entrance.  Anyone could see them."

"Probably a lot of people knew about them," Markby mused.

"Certain.  Anyone could've used them.  Unless, of course, it was
Constantine's ghost!"  Hawkins gave a snort.

"Heavy-footed ghost."

"Ah, but he's full of surprises from beyond the grave, is our friend,
Constantine."  Hawkins jabbed the fork towards Meredith and Penny
Staunton.

"See the redhead?  Doctor's missus.  I had a word with her husband
yesterday evening."  Hawkins lowered his voice as someone neared and
fell silent.

"Seen the aviary?"  Markby asked suddenly.

"If you haven't, come along, I'll show you."

"Well," said Hawkins a few moments later, 'that says it all, that
does!

" They stood in the conservatory before the wire cage.  Although the
day was warmer, no one had turned down the heating in there.  It was
sweltering, and the odour of orange blossom seemed intensified.

Hawkins took out a handkerchief and mopped his face.

"Ruddy hothouse."

"Yes, that's what it was intended to be.  Pity there aren't any plants
in it now.  I understand that when the Constantines moved in, they
threw all the existing plants out, except for that orange tree."

"That heavy scent makes me feel queasy," Hawkins grumbled, but he sat
down in one of the cushion-filled bamboo armchairs, testing it
cautiously as he did so.

It was Markby's guess that today, as on the previous morning in the
wild garden, Hawkins was willing, even anxious, to talk to him about
the case, or at least about the Constantines.  The London man had
decided that coldshouldering the chief inspector might not be the best
policy.  Markby went to the aviary and began to study its occupants as
he waited.

From the armchair, Hawkins cleared his throat and got straight to the
point.

"She's never talked about that heart attack of his, has she?  Since
you've been here?"

So something specific was worrying Hawkins, and he wanted to check out
a difficult point.

"No.  Apart from saying how much she misses him, she doesn't say a lot
about him at all.  I think she's rather put out at being left to look
after his canaries."

Hawkins sniffed.

"Keep this to yourself.  The post mortem turned up something funny.

Last year, or so we're given to understand, Constantine suffered a mild
heart attack.  What they sometimes call a warning attack.  He sought
treatment and was fine until a week before Chelsea, when he experienced
more twinges and consulted the local man, Staunton, again.  Staunton
prescribed medication and told him to come back if the pains
persisted.

"Now for the odd part of it.  When our pathologist opened up the body,
he couldn't find any sign of heart disease.  Arteries clean as
whistles.  Valves all hunky-dory Excluding damage done by the poison,
the heart was in a beautiful state.  He might have suffered from a
touch of liver trouble.

Probably enjoyed his glass of wine.  There were very early signs of
cirrhosis.  But he never complained to Staunton about his liver.  Our
pathologist reckoned him a pretty fit corpse."

"So he didn't have a heart attack last year?"  Markby turned from the
aviary and frowned.

"Are you is your pathologist sure?"

"Sure as can be without being a heart specialist.  But neither is
Staunton a specialist.  He's just a family GP.  When I asked him if he
was certain of his diagnosis, he got hurry, as they all do.  Doctors
don't like laymen questioning their judgement.  But there's another
thing post mortem tests didn't find.  They didn't show any trace of the
medication Staunton prescribed just before the Chelsea visit.  It was a
month's supply of pills and ought to be traceable in the body, even
allowing for variation in any individual's body chemistry."

"Did you ask Rachel his wife about the pills?  Did he take them?

Sometimes people don't or they don't finish a course."

"She's as vague about that as about everything else," Hawkins said in
disgust.

"She thinks he took them.  She didn't see him take them.  She hasn't
found them lying around the house."

Markby rubbed a hand uneasily over his chin.

"So Staunton mis diagnosed Alex's symptoms?  But didn't a London
specialist also see Alex last year when he had the first signs of
trouble?  Rachel said so."

"Yes, we checked on that.  By the time the Harley Street man saw
Constantine, he was feeling better and had had no further symptoms.

The specialist had Staunton's letter referring the patient, giving
Staunton's opinion.  He ran his own tests, of course, and carried out
his own examination.  They showed up some definite irregularity, the
sort of thing often seen in cases of stress and overwork.  So he
confirmed that it had been a mild attack and advised his patient that
he'd had a warning to slow up, take life a little easier.  He
prescribed pills and a diet, put in his bill and everyone was happy
with that."

"Whereas there'd been no attack at all ... So what was wrong with
Alex?

Something that came on like a heart attack and fooled both doctors?"

Markby frowned at the insouciant canaries, hopping from twig to twig of
the orange tree.

"Could he have picked up something from handling those birds?  Or was
it the liver playing up, not the heart?

You said there were early signs of liver disease.  But surely the
specialist's tests would have revealed that, even if Staunton's
didn't?

" "Makes you wonder, doesn't it?  Maybe someone had slipped something
in his food or drink?"  Hawkins burped discreetly behind his hand,
perhaps at the thought of the piled plate of ham and cold chicken he'd
just consumed.  "And just maybe, the successful attempt on his life at
Chelsea wasn't the killer's first try!"

There was a pause.

"He saw his own doctor locally a week before he died?"

Hawkins nodded.

"If you've planned to poison a man and you learn he's being treated by
his doctor, it's something to be taken seriously into account.  Maybe
that was why the attack took place in London?"

Markby felt the words pile up on his lips and struggled to reply in a
manner fitting both the solemn occasion and the fact that Hawkins was a
senior officer.  But it wasn't easy.

"I take your point.  All this seems to point to inside knowledge of the
Constantines.  I know you're hinting at Rachel.  But you saw her
today.

She loved him!  And just look at this house.  I wouldn't want to live
in it, but this is completely her lifestyle and Alex provided it.  Why
would she help someone to kill--' There was a light step behind them
which made them both whirl round.

The doctor's wife.  Penny Staunton, stood in the doorway.  She blushed,
her cheeks clashing with her russet hair.

"I'm so sorry!  I thought no one would be out here.  I just came to
take another look at the aviary.  This is only the second time I've
been in this house."  She sounded wistful.

"The last time was a charity coffee morning Rachel hosted.  She took us
round and showed us everything, including this room.  It was so
beautiful!

Of course, I knew all about Alex and Rachel, how happy they were and
everything!"

She became aware of two sets of stony expressions, gave an embarrassed
little laugh, seemed to realise it was inappropriate, turned even
redder, and fled to the distant murmur of the main party.

Markby growled, "You see?  Information about Alex could have got around
from that woman, obviously a born gossip.  Or from the housekeeper.  Or
a dozen people not in this house!  It's a small community: anyone could
have seen him at the surgery.  Everyone probably knew he'd had a spot
of heart trouble last year.

For pity's sake, so little happens in a place like this, everything is
of interest!  It's not like the big city where there's so much going on
and people go through life without ever speaking to their
neighbours."

Markby realised he was getting heated and brought his protests to an
abrupt halt.  More reasonably he added, "I don't want to sound rude,
sir.  But I do have a personal stake in this, I admit, and I do deal
with small communities all the time."

"Speak your mind, Chief Inspector!"  Hawkins returned, obviously well
satisfied at having prompted the outburst.  He nodded in the direction
of the dining room from which the murmur of mourners' voices could be
heard.

"I'm not that much of townie.  I'm well aware they all knew him and all
about him.  But they're all so keen to say what a good chap he was,
have you noticed?  Talk about singing someone's praises!"

"That's customary at funerals."

"It's fishy," said Hawkins firmly.

"They can't all have had such a high opinion of him!  One of 'em must
have wanted | him out of the way.  Could've been any one of 'em," he |
concluded morosely.  | Markby sighed."  Have you had a word with Nevil
James?  He's probably still in the other room."

"The boyfriend?"

Suppressed fury entered Hawkins's lean features.

"He's got an alibi.  It's a corgi."

Chapter Fifteen when meredith awoke on the morning following Alex's
burial, the sun was shining brightly and a sense of oppression seemed
to have lifted from the house.

It's because I can think about getting away from here, she thought as
she brushed her hair energetically.  Rachel couldn't expect her to stay
for ever.

The funeral was over, and Hawkins should be through by the end of the
week.

He couldn't stay indefinitely, surely?  Even if he hadn't got a result,
he'd be needed back in London.  Alan and she could both go home and
forget about the wretched business for a while.

Almost light-heartedly she ran down the staircase and burst into the
dining room.  To her surprise, Rachel not normally an early riser was
already at the table.  She, too, was looking remarkably bright and
relaxed.

"Good morning!"  Meredith took the chair opposite.

"You look as though you slept well."

"Yes, I did!  For the first time in ages.  Since Alex died, in fact."

Rachel smashed the top of her boiled egg neatly with a spoon.

"It's over and it's such a relief!"

"I thought the funeral arrangements went very well," Meredith replied
cautiously.

"The rector said nice things about Alex.  It was very good of Alex to
give to the church restoration fund.

" "Yes, it all did go well, didn't it?  As for the steeple fund, the
rector asked me if it was all right to mention that, and I said I
didn't see why not, now.  At the time Alex didn't want it known.  He
never did want any publicity when he wrote out cheques for charity.

He said it didn't matter if no one knew who gave the money.

"God will know it!"  That's what he always said.  But I want people to
know now how generous Alex was, especially if--' She broke off and
Meredith encouraged, "If what?"

"Oh, you know, when a person dies everyone is so nice about him at
first, but later on, they start to gossip and try to destroy his
reputation.  I want people to know that Alex was a good man!"  Her
green eyes glowed, darkening to an almost jade colour.

"But I meant more than the funeral when I said it's over."

There was another break in the conversation occasioned by Mrs Pascoe
arriving with a pot of fresh coffee.  She asked if Meredith also wanted
a boiled egg and, if so, boiled as hard as last time.

"I remember that," said Rachel reminiscently as the housekeeper
departed.

"Isn't it funny, the odd little snippets which stick in the mind?  At
school the breakfast boiled eggs were always rock solid, and you were
the only person who didn't grumble about them."

"Breakfast was the best meal of the day at that school," Meredith
contributed her own fragment of memory.  "Every other meal seemed to be
some form of stew and a stodgy pudding."

"The summer pudding was particularly nasty: soggy bread slices and
pippy fruit," said Rachel with a shudder.

"The bread-and-butter pudding was worse.  Come to think of it, all the
puddings they served up were bread- based.  Waste not, want not!"

They both laughed.  Rachel clapped a hand guiltily to her mouth.

"Here we are, giggling away, and poor Alex cold in the earth!  It's so
wrong.

He should be here, with us!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Ray!"  Meredith said contritely.

"No, don't apologise!  It's as I said.  It's over.  I told you, once
Alex was buried I'd be able to get all the grief out and then get on
with my life.  I hope that doesn't sound uncaring.  I'll always mourn
him in my heart.  But I recognise I can't do anything to put the clock
back.  He's gone and I can't change it.  I've got happy memories of him
which is a comfort.  All I can do now is start again, afresh."

"You've a lot of courage, Ray!"  Meredith said suddenly.

Rachel rested her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands.  She
thrust out her full lower lip as she considered this statement.

"I don't know about that.  I'm basically a practical person.  That's
why I'm going up to London tomorrow to put the house on the market.  "
"What?  Sell Malefis?"  Meredith slopped coffee into her saucer.

"Yes, why not sh!"  Mrs Pascoe could be heard approaching.

"I haven't told Letty Pascoe yet.  I shall do, right after breakfast,"
Rachel hissed.

"Here you are, Miss Mitchell."  Mrs Pascoe set down the egg.  It wore a
little knitted cap with a tiny porn-porn on the top.

"Just the way you like them."

She went out.  Meredith took the bobble cap off the egg and struck it
with her spoon.  It bounced off the shell.

"Of course, a house this size with grounds, both requiring some staff,
will have to be advertised nationwide," Rachel went on in a low voice
in case Mrs Pascoe was still within earshot.

"I thought if one of the up market mags carried it say, Country Life
the sort of people would see it who'd be interested."

"Don't ask me.  I'm afraid I can't help.  I've never had to sell a
mansion," Meredith said wryly.

"You'll have to get it properly valued."

"The estate agents will do that.  The place is in good shape.  The
gardens are kept up and the house is modernised.  I'm sure I don't know
how that pineapple nearly fell on you, Meredith!  Nothing like that has
ever happened before."

"Just bad luck," Meredith told her, a little defensively because Rachel
managed to make it sound as if the whole incident had been Meredith's
own fault.  Dr Staunton had thought it unwise to add to Rachel's
distress, so the discovery of the nails in the garden wall had been
kept from the widow for the time being.  There was no point in telling
her now, even if it was annoying to have the responsibility for the
accident lobbed at her by inference.  But Rachel had always been like
that, Meredith remembered.  She had never taken responsibility for any
mishap or piece of schoolgirl misdoing, even when she had been the
inspiration for it.  She'd always looked you in the eye in that candid
way and absolved herself completely from any connection with the
deed.

As Rachel herself had said earlier, things stick in the mind.

"What will you do.  Ray, when Malefis is sold?"  A thought struck
Meredith.

"And what about Alex's business?"

"I'll go into his London office tomorrow as well.  I'll be gone all
day, Meredith, I hope you don't mind.  There's no reason why the
business shouldn't just continue.  I'm sure I can run it, once I've had
a good look at the books and a talk with the office manager.  I do
already have the basic know- how.  That was something Alex insisted I
acquire after he had his heart attack last year.  He wanted me to
understand the business so that if he well, if he were ill for a long
time or if the worst came to the worst and he had another, fatal heart
attack, I could carry on.  So I do know roughly how it all
functions."

This statement was made with a serenity that either perceived no
difficulties or was confident of overcoming them.  Meredith wasn't sure
which.  She struggled to assimilate the new image of Rachel, working
nine to five.

Rachel, joining the rat-race?  Setting off every day with her document
case for the boardroom?  Inspecting newly arrived crates of figs and
dates in the company warehouse?  Driving hard deals with shrewd
suppliers?  It was a big change from any Rachel Hunter she'd ever
known.

Meredith buttered the toast thoughtfully.  Hawkins would also be
interested to find the widow not only no longer visibly grief-stricken,
but about to launch an active business career.  Rachel intended
stepping effortlessly into the dead man's shoes, a free, independent
and wealthy woman.  It was a scenario which might be misunderstood and
Hawkins a man whose suspicions were easily aroused.

As tactfully as she could, Meredith suggested, "Oughtn't you to wait
just a little while, Ray?"

Rachel raised surprised eyebrows.

"For what?  The will to go to probate?  Alex left everything to me.

There'll be no problem."

"I wasn't thinking of the will.  I was thinking that it's usually best
not to make decisions too quickly when when someone is in your
situation.  You've suffered a very bad shock.  You could be acting on
impulse.  In a few months' time, when you've had time to consider, you
may think differently about selling Malefis."

Rachel shook her blonde head briskly and made a dismissive gesture with
one slim hand.  A ray of sun caught the diamonds in her ring and made
them gleam.

"No, I shall't.  I'm quite sure."

"Then there's the police investigation, Ray.  I don't want to remind
you of it or suggest anything alarming.  But Hawkins might wonder why
you're so keen to get to work in the business so quickly."

"Who is going to run it, if I don't?  Besides, it's none of that man's
concern!"  Anger darkened Rachel's eyes again.  "Snooping around
Lynstone as if we were all under suspicion!  He should be in London.

That's where poor Alex died!  I can tell you, I consider he's wasting
time, mine and the tax-payer's, and when this is over, I shall probably
make an official complaint!  " She crumpled her napkin and tossed it
into the middle of the table between them.

"In the meantime, I do not need Superintendent Hawkins to tell me what
I should do, Meredith!"

Meredith accepted that Rachel's mind had been made up.  She could have
argued further, but an unbidden 'what the heck?  " rose up in her
thoughts.  Rachel had always been wilful.  People dealt with emotional
crises in their own way.

Throwing herself into work might be no more than Rachel's answer.

"Fair enough, Ray.  But where will you live, in London?"

"Not sure."  Rachel frowned.

"I realise it'll take a while to find a buyer for Malefis.  Large
country houses are slow movers on the present property market I should
imagine.  But I can live anywhere.  I could even move the business if
necessary.  I fancy somewhere warm.

Winters here at Lynstone are arctic.  We get snowed in regularly.

There might be advantages, too, in moving somewhere more tax
advantageous This final transformation of Mrs Constantine from clinging
neurotic to high-powered executive left Meredith with little to say.

But she did wonder furiously, as she ate, what Alan would make of it
all.

Alan took it surprisingly calmly.  Later that morning they walked up
the lane towards the summit of Windmill Hill, and Meredith explained it
as best she could, which wasn't very well.

"I'm flummoxed, to put it mildly!  She's completely changed!  At least
it means I shall't have to stay here much longer.  I'm obviously no
longer needed to give moral support.  You may find the same, although I
suppose she'll want you to stay for as long as Hawkins is around.  I
must say, I'm rather longing to get back to Bamford."

"I know her better than you," Alan said, swiping at nettles with a
venerable Edwardian walking stick he'd found in a stand at the hotel.

"I've always known that beneath that porcelain exterior she was as
tough as old boots.  Good!  We can both go home!"

"I still can't take it in.  To tell you the truth, I'm a little worried
she isn't overcompensating for her loss and that she'll suffer some
kind of nervous reaction later."

"How so?"  Markby raised the walking stick level with his eye and
squinted along its length.

"She's determined to manage without him.  I'd admire her bravery if she
weren't being so bullish about it.  It's as though she's refusing to
admit life is going to be any different without Alex.  Even when she
talks of running the business, she stresses she's following Alex's
instructions, as if she's in partnership with a dead man.  She could be
in danger of suppressing her grief and masking it with activity."

"Sounds rather deep to me.  I've long grown cynical where Rachel's
concerned.

She wants to control the source of the money, that's how I interpret
it!

And who's to say her instincts aren't entirely sound?

Alex was doing pretty well from all I've heard."  They had reached the
end of the lane and emerged from the tunnel of trees into an open,
windswept space.  Meredith gave a gasp and temporarily forgot Rachel
and her ambitions.  The view from up here, high above the surrounding
countryside, was simply magnificent.  The hillside plunged to a shallow
valley and rose on the further side, crisscrossed by dry stone walls
and patched by woods.  No matter which way one turned, on all sides the
same landscape presented itself, undulating hills like billowing waves
all around them.  The roofs of ancient hamlets could be glimpsed in the
vales, and here and there a church spire protruded from behind a rise
in the land, announcing the site of another settlement.  Lonely
farmsteads clung to the steep slopes.

Time seemed to have passed this place by.

"It's a beautiful spot," Meredith said with awe.

"No wonder poor Alex loved it so!"

They searched around for the site of the old windmill for a while but
without luck.

"It must have been totally demolished and the rubble carted away,"
Markby said at last, parting brambles with the useful walking stick and
peering into the tangle of undergrowth.

"I'll ask that woman, Mavis, when I see her back at the hotel."

Mention of Mavis made Meredith think of Molly James and of Nevil.

"Molly asked me if Rachel would be selling up.  I dare say she'll be
pleased when she hears Malefis is going to be put on the market.  But
poor Nevil will be distraught!"

"Ah, the weedy young chap who turned up at the funeral."

"He's not bad looking.  It's the thick specs which disguise it.  He's
crazy about her.  I wonder what he'll do."  Meredith scraped
wind-tossed hair from her eyes.

"I mean, there's no place in any of Rachel's plans for Nevil."

"Then Nevil will have to bite the bullet, won't he?  Did he but know
it, he's lucky Rachel doesn't include him in her grand scheme," was the
unsympathetic retort to this.  "Anyway, from what you tell me, by
selling Malefis, Rachel will put an end to a rather sordid little
affair.  She'll shake the dust of Lynstone from her well-shod feet and
Nevil will get over it in time."

"I just don't feel it'll all end so neatly!"  Meredith said uneasily.

"Stop worrying about it."  He was clearly still more interested in
finding the remains of the windmill, and in no mood to discuss Rachel's
state of mind.  He pointed with the walking stick.

"We didn't search over there.  That looks a likely spot!"

A faint track veered off to the left across the turf.  She followed him
slowly as he set off along it.  It led them to a mound which rose from
the hillside like a large blister.  Densely-packed tall coarse grasses
and a few straggling bramble sprays covered it with a rough coat, in
contrast to the smooth, springy turf surrounding it.

"This spot catches the wind all right."  Meredith huddled into her
coat.

Alan was getting enthusiastic.

"Look, something must have been built here and disturbed the underlying
soil!

It caused rough vegetation to grow up in place of turf; you can see it
covers a circular area.  It's too exposed for the brambles to flourish,
but the grass has done all right."

Meredith, whose mind had drifted towards thoughts of hot cups of tea,
began to be interested despite herself, infected by his enthusiasm.

"Might it be the site of something more interesting than some old
windmill?

Something prehistoric?  Or a burial tumulus?"

He kicked his foot against a hummock.

"There's stone under the turf here.  No, I reckon this is the
windmill."

Her flicker of interest died.

"Good, can we go back now?"  But he was scraping away at the topsoil,
trying to uncover the stone beneath.

Meredith sighed and wandered down a narrow footpath beaten between
thigh-high grass, dry and brown still from winter, although green
shoots were pushing up fast from the roots.  The path led her to a
small, flattened area in the very centre of the patch at the blunt tip
of the mound.  The wind whistled sharply past her ears, making them
sting.  She gave an exclamation of disgust.

"What's up?"  he called.

"Litter, that's what!  Why must people chuck their rubbish down in such
an un spoilt place?  It wouldn't be such a hardship to take it home."

Markby had joined her as she spoke and she pointed to the source of her
annoyance: a crumpled cigarette packet, a clutch of beer cans, together
with the remains of the plastic wrap which had sealed them into a
'four-pack', and a heap of damp dog-ends.

Markby studied the array of rubbish and the surrounding flat bed of
grass thoughtfully.

"A sort of den," he muttered.  "Anyone sitting up here would be quite
unseen, well hidden by the tall grass.  I wonder who?  Youngsters,
maybe, hiding out up here for an illicit smoke and drink?"

Meredith glanced at him but clearly he was thinking aloud, talking to
himself.

"No," he answered his own question.

"No.  One person, probably a man.  Not such a litter-lout as all that,
either.  Or at least, he was aware of fire-hazard.  See?"

He pointed with the walking stick.  A hole had been gouged in the turf,
revealing the dry, stony soil beneath.  It was filled with the
cigarette stubs.

"He's quite tidy, even made himself an ashtray!

What's more," Markby touched the empty packet with the tip of the
stick, 'he smokes quite a classy brand of gasper!  Not kids, no.

Someone fairly orderly and with a fixed purpose."  Meredith looked down
at the trampled grass and the collection of debris, especially the
earth 'ashtray'.

"So many cigarettes," she said quietly.

"And four cans.  He must have been sitting up here for quite some
time."

"Or on more than one occasion!"

"Why?  What was he doing?"  The breeze rustled the surrounding grasses
and her earlier unease returned.

"He couldn't see the valley from here as he sat, not with all that
grass around him."

"If you want to know what he could see, there's only one way to find
out!"

Alan handed her the walking stick.  He sat down in the middle of the
patch at a place where, by stretching out his hand, he could easily
reach the ashtray excavation.  Then he rested his arms on his crooked
knees and gazed ahead of him.

"Hah!  He had a view all right, if a bit restricted!  He was looking
straight down the path flattened in the grass to lead here!  He had an
unimpeded tunnel-view back down the hill in the direction we climbed
up."

"So, what exactly can you see from there?"  Meredith demanded
impatiently.

He had fallen silent, staring ahead of him down the alley between the
tall grasses.

He looked up at her.

"Malefis."

"What?"

He jumped up.

"See for yourself!"

Meredith lowered herself cautiously on to the ground where he'd been
sitting.

The turf was unyielding and probably only a thin layer over old stone
foundations, as he'd suggested.  She uttered a faint exclamation of
surprise.

The alley concentrated her eye-line as effectively as a gun-sight.

Her gaze was directed down the hillside, through a gap in the trees,
and there before her was the front aspect of Malefis Abbey, including
two-thirds of the front drive and the lawns before the house, all in
startling clarity.

Its Gothic windows and fantastic chimneys all looked odder than ever
among the surrounding trees, suggesting a secret and sinister castle in
a fairy-tale.

With awe in her voice, she said, "He could see anyone arriving at the
house or leaving it."

She turned her face upward to meet Markby's quizzical gaze, looking
down at her.

"Alan, he's been keeping watch on the house.  Spying!  Do you think he
had binoculars?  I bet he did!  He's sat up here and checked on every
visitor to the house.  Probably watched us all go off to the funeral
yesterday.  He may have been up here on Friday morning when I
arrived.

If so, he saw me drive up to the front door, get out of the car and
talk to Martin, saw Martin take my case indoors .  He knew I'd come to
stay!  " She broke off, leaving unsaid the next deduction which was:
And he started then to plan an accident for me!  Instead she said, "He
can't see the gates or pineapples from here.  They're hidden by
trees.

But he could know about them."

Alan gave her his hand to rise.  She scrambled up, dusting herself of
dried grass and grit.

"Who is he, Alan?"

"I don't know," he told her.

"But someone with a great deal of interest in Malefis!"

What neither Meredith nor Alan Markby could have seen from their
vantage point, even if they'd been looking at the right time, was
Gillian Hardy.  She had approached Malefis Abbey from the rear, via the
gardens, having gained access through a half-hidden door in the outer
walls.  She knew, as she walked along the narrow pathway between banked
shrubs, that it was by this route that Nevil usually walked from the
cattery to Malefis.  The thought made her both more depressed and more
resolute.

Mavis had called in at the cattery to have coffee that morning, and had
informed them that the good-looking policeman, the one who used to be
married to Mrs Constantine, had gone for a walk with Rachel's school
friend He'd borrowed a walking stick so the expedition bore the signs
of being quite a hike.  Gillian had made an excuse and slipped away at
once.  She mightn't get another opportunity to corner Rachel while her
friends were out of the way, not for some time.

She touched the pocket of her jacket and it crackled.

"Rachel won't be able to ignore it!"  she thought with a spurt of
triumph.

At the edge of the shrubbery she stopped and surveyed the house, which
lay a little distance away across a lawn.  As she watched, a figure
left the kitchen wing.  It was Mrs Pascoe, dressed to go on a shopping
expedition.

Gillian saw the housekeeper get into a little Mini parked by the
kitchen door and drive away in a spatter of gravel.  So much the
better.  Rachel must now be quite alone in the house.

Still Gillian hesitated.  If she made her way to the front entrance and
rang, Rachel might shut the door in her face before she could speak.

So why not do as Nevil did and presume permission to stroll in
uninvited through the conservatory?  He'd always done this before Alex
died, in the free-and-easy assumption that he was regarded as a family
friend, and he'd continued to do so since Alex's death in his capacity
as aviary-keeper.  Gillian gave a little snort of disgust.

But she had made up her mind and set off for the opposite wing where
the conservatory was built against the side of the house.

The sun glittered off its steeply angled glass roof as she approached
and she was vaguely aware of its Victorian splendour.  Its garden door
was unlocked.

She pushed it open and stepped in.

A blast of warm air struck her, together with a cloying scent of orange
blossom.  The canaries sensed a draught and that someone had entered.

They fluttered about their aviary and, although she was bent on finding
Rachel, Gillian was drawn to cross and stand before it, watching
them.

She loved all animals, but had had little to do with birds.  She felt
sorry for the chirping canaries as they flitted about the confines of
their aviary.  It was a luxury abode by most cage-bird standards.  But
it still seemed wrong to her that these, the freest of all God's
creatures, should have their liberty restricted in any way.

Perhaps she felt a greater empathy with them because she also knew what
it was like to be trapped in a situation which was not materially
uncomfortable but in all other ways frustrating.  She, too, wished that
she could spread her wings and soar far away.  She loved her parents,
but knew she could never leave them.  She loved Nevil, but would never
have him.  But at least she could do this thing for him.  She could
deliver him from Rachel's clutches.

At the thought she pulled one of the mutilated photographs of Mrs James
from her pocket and scanned it eagerly.  She had only brought one of
them, leaving the other still in its hiding place in her bedroom.  This
picture was going to settle things once and for all.

She remembered the day she'd found the manila envelope.  It had
attracted her attention, poking out of the smouldering rubbish on the
bonfire of used animal bedding.  Not normally given to idle curiosity,
some obscure sense that this mattered had made her scrape away the
smoking straw and drag it clear with her shovel before the fire got to
it.  The envelope had been singed a little round the edges, but the
fire hadn't damaged its contents.

Just recalling the moment, she could feel now, as she'd felt then, the
shock when she'd seen what it contained.  Shock followed by a thrill,
because she held in her hands two pieces of paper which might one day
give her power to change things.

Gillian made to turn away from the aviary but, as she did, she noticed
that the water-dish, lying on its floor, was empty.  The little birds
hopped around it disconsolately.  One had hopped into it and squatted
in the middle, as if expecting the water to return.  Her instincts as
one whose working life was spent in the care of animals immediately
came to the fore, eclipsing even her present errand.  She stuffed the
photo roughly back into her pocket and looked round.  Yes, there was a
tap over there, above an Italian ate marble basin.

Carefully, Gillian unlatched the aviary's wire door and edged inside.

The birds fluttered away in alarm.  She closed the door before any
could escape and retrieved the empty dish.  Then she let herself out,
again with great care, and went to fill it at the tap.

How typical of Rachel, she thought crossly as she did this, to let the
poor birds go without water!  She ought to check them first thing,
every morning.

But she was probably waiting for Nevil to come over and see to it.

Well, Nevil wouldn't be coming here much longer!  He'd be angry, of
course, when he found out what Gillian had done.  But it was in his
best interests that she was doing it.  Cruel to be kind, that's what
you had sometimes to be.  Nevil, when he was no longer under Rachel's
influence and had got over it, would understand and forgive Gillian.

She carried the filled water-dish to the aviary and let herself in.

The birds, perched high on the orange tree branches, watched her as she
stooped and set the dish in its former place.

"What are you doing in there?"  The voice came from behind her, the
words quietly spoken but filled with accusation.

Gillian gave a startled gasp and stood up quickly, turning towards the
aviary door.

She babbled, "The birds had no water ... I just filled their dish, over
there!"  She pointed nervously at the tap.

"I mean, what are you doing here at all?  You have no business here.

Are you a thief?  " The wire was between them but she was inside the
cage and the sensation of being trapped became overwhelming.  The
unjustness of the accusation panicked her further.  She dragged the
mutilated photograph from her pocket.

"No!  Of course I'm not here to steal anything!  I brought this!"

Defiantly she held it up.

There was a little sigh.

"Give it to me!"

The wire door opened and the other stepped inside, holding out a hand
for the photograph.

"No!"  Gillian stumbled back, knocking the newly-filled water-dish and
spilling some of its contents on to the sandy floor.  She gripped the
picture tightly, pressing it against her chest.

"How stupid you are!"  said the soft voice.

"And really, so ugly."

A few minutes later the latch of the aviary door clicked.  The birds
were huddled on the uppermost branches, silent and fearful, pressed
against one another for reassurance.  The only sound came from the
water tap as it dripped into its basin; a monotonous, tiny explosion as
each drop hit the marble side.

Eventually one canary, braver than its comrades, fluttered down to the
sandy floor.  It hopped across to the water-dish, perched on the side
and drank.

The others took courage.  They too flew down and, thirsty, jostled one
another around the water.  The first canary flew away from the
scrummage and settled on the head of the slumped body in the corner of
the aviary.  From this new vantage point it opened its throat and began
to sing.

Chapter Sixteen when meredith and Alan Markby returned to the house,
Mrs Pascoe was unloading a stack of bulging supermarket carrier bags
from the Mini.

They hastened to help her carry them into the kitchen.

"I don't suppose I shall be doing this for much longer," the
housekeeper said as she stowed groceries away briskly in larder,
freezer or fridge as appropriate.

Meredith exchanged a glance with Markby who shrugged.

"Has Mrs Constantine...?"  Meredith hesitated.

"Told me she means to sell up?"  Mrs Pascoe backed out of the larder
and stood with a packet of icing sugar in her hand.

"Yes, after breakfast she did that.  I can't say I was surprised.  It
stands to reason, she won't want to go on living here alone without Mr
Constantine.

I never knew such a devoted couple.  It's really no exaggeration to say
they lived for one another."

She stared at the packet of icing sugar, as if not sure where it had
come from and muttered, "Oh, yes!"  She turned back to put it on the
shelf behind her.

"Naturally, I shall be very sorry.  I've been happy here in this
house."

"Have you any idea yet as to what you'll do?"  Markby asked her.

Mrs Pascoe began to fold up the empty carrier bags.

"I shall take a little holiday.  Mr Constantine was kind enough to
remember me in his will.  It's not settled yet, but when it is, I
shall't have to worry for a bit about money.  Colonel and Mrs Soames,
they live in Lynstone and were here for the buffet lunch yesterday,
said if I was to find myself looking for a new post, to remember
them.

But I don't know if I want to stay here among so many memories."  Her
manner became brisk.

"Now then, what about lunch?  I was going to suggest salad of some
kind.

There's plenty of cold meat left and all of that pate you bought,
Miss.

How about some of that and some brown bread and butter?"

"What do you make of it?"  Meredith whispered as they left the
kitchen.

"Of what?"

"You know what I mean.  This constant talk of how devoted they were,
Alex and Rachel!  I've had time to think it over during our walk and
it's beginning to bug me."

"It seems to be the general opinion, so I suppose it's right."  Markby
hunched his shoulders.

"I can't say Rachel and I were blissfully happy in our brief time
together, but I'm trying not to let that prejudice me.  I'm sure she
and Alex got on like a house on fire.  He was the sort of man she'd
been looking for all her life.  You bet she's heartbroken."

"But is she?  I thought she was until I heard her this morning.  Now
I'm really confused about how she feels!  She was full of the new life
she meant to start, making jokes about our old school breakfasts.  Oh,
she paid lip-service to Alex's memory, insisted what a saint he was and
how she'd always mourn him, but all she really had on her mind was
selling Malefis and taking over the business.  We only buried him
yesterday!

She's either pretending to herself that he's still at her side, which
was my initial impression, or - or Meredith stopped then burst out
baldly 'or it's an act.  I don't know which."

"Well, don't ask me!"

Markby retorted in exasperation.  "Anyway, it's none of our affair.

Personally I'm delighted Rachel's got a new interest.  It means that
you and I can leave here all the sooner.  With any luck, when she gets
back from London tomorrow she'll have decided we're not needed any
more.

We can have a farewell dinner together and think about it by Friday we
can both be back in Bamford!"

That sounded good to both of them, and they uttered a joint, wistful
sigh.

By common consent they had been making their way towards the
conservatory.

There had been no sign yet of the subject of their conversation,
although she must be somewhere about the house.

"That was quite a tiring walk," Meredith said as they entered the great
glass-walled extension.

"I shall be glad to sit down for five minutes before lunch and just
watch those birds!"

"I'll go and find Rachel and we'll all have a sherry," Markby said,
turning back to the door.

"A/an/' At the note of horror in her voice, he stopped in his tracks
and then whirled round.

"What is it?"

"Look-look in there..."  Meredith pointed at the aviary, her eyes wide
with dismay and revulsion.

Markby followed the direction of her trembling hand.  The canaries were
hopping around seemingly without a care, despite the fact that, seated
on the floor of their enclosure, slumped against the wall, was a young
woman.  Squeezing Meredith's shoulder in brief reassurance as he passed
her, he went to the wire and stared through it at the grotesque, silent
form on the other side.

He didn't know her.  He supposed she must be local.  She was dressed in
workaday clothes, fawn cord slacks, sensible shoes and an old tweed
jacket.

Her eyes and mouth were open and her lank, badly trimmed hair fell
untidily around her face.  Studying her with a police officer's
dispassionate eye, Markby thought that this one had never been a
beauty.  Her complexion was bad and her features lumpy.  Now hair,
clothes and all exposed areas of skin were spattered with bird
droppings.  She looked like a soiled rag doll, thrown aside,
unwanted.

"Wait there," he said quietly over his shoulder to Meredith.  He eased
open the aviary door.  The canaries fluttered away up into the orange
tree.

Markby slipped through the crack and shut the door behind him.

Before approaching the figure in the corner he took a good look at the
sandy floor.  It was fairly well disturbed and, to avoid disturbing it
further, he edged around the walls behind the tree and approached the
body from the side.

Because this was clearly a corpse.  That was not in doubt.

Nevertheless, he had to check.  He stooped over her, peering closely
for any sign of life.  The sightless eyes, pale blue, stared back at
him.  They were already filming over.  One knee was crooked up and the
other lay straight out in front of her.  Her hands, coarse-skinned and
stubby- fingered, lay to either side, resting on the sandy floor.  The
wool fib res of her pullover, beneath the jacket, were dark and sodden,
sticky with what could only be blood.

Markby gently put his fingers to where the pulse should be in her neck,
but he knew it was useless.  She wasn't yet cold.  An hour or so, he
thought to himself.  She's not been dead much longer than that.  He
glanced at his wristwatch.  Twelve-forty.  Around eleven that morning,
then, while he and Meredith were climbing Windmill Hill and Mrs Pascoe
was shopping in the town.

He didn't touch the body again, although he'd have liked to lift the
arm to see how far rigor had advanced.  But all that must be left for
others to do.

He could see the first signs in the dropped lower jaw.

The gaping mouth added to the general un attractiveness of the face.

Then, as he straightened up, he saw that the dead fingers of one hand
clasped something.  He bent down again, squinting.

It was only a scrap of torn paper.  But it didn't appear to be ordinary
paper, more a kind of thin card.  He wished he could see it better but,
without removing it from her grasp, which was out of the question, he
couldn't make it out exactly.  It appeared triangular, with two smooth
cut sides and one jagged.  The corner of something, therefore, ripped
from her fingers as she tried to retain it.  One surface was white and
plain and the other very shiny and printed with something.  A large
photo!  he thought.

It's the corner of a large photo of some kind.

"Alan?"  Meredith's voice came from behind him.

"Coming!"  He retreated from the aviary via the route by which he'd
entered, and rejoined her.  She was very pale but not panicking.

"Dead, I'm afraid," he confirmed.

"I'll have to call Hawkins straight away.  You don't happen to know who
she is, do you?"

"Yes.  Gillian Hardy.  Poor kid, she works worked for Molly as kennel
maid "Oh?"  He frowned.

"Was she in the habit of calling at this house?"

"Shouldn't imagine so.  I never saw her here."  Meredith hesitated.

"She1 think she was rather keen on Nevil."  She turned troubled hazel
eyes on him.

"Where's Rachel?"

"My God!  Rachel!  Stay here and don't let Mrs Pascoe or anyone else
in.

I'll be back as soon as I can.  Don't touch anything!"

Markby ran through the glass doors into the house, shouting as he
went.

"Rachel!  Rach!  Where are you?  Are you all right?"

To his relief, her voice replied distantly.

"Alan!  In the study!

What's the fuss?  " Then his initial relief vanished and was replaced
with a sinking feeling as he walked towards the sound.

She was in a small study, sitting at a desk strewn with papers.  Even
at this time of stress, he was momentarily further disconcerted to see
that, for close reading, she had donned spectacles.  He'd had no idea
she needed them and he found himself thinking with a pang of sadness,
Even Rachel is getting older.

She looked up as he entered and he was amazed at the difference the
glasses made to her appearance.  They suited her but they turned her
into a different person.  Yes, he thought, she is a businesswoman!

She saw his surprise, grimaced, took off the glasses and pushed back
her thick, honey-coloured hair with both hands.

"Alan?  Back already?  You've discovered my little secret!"  She waved
the spectacles at him, then glanced at her wristwatch.

"Goodness, is that the time?  Mrs Pascoe will be serving lunch soon.

Let's all have a--' " Rachel!  " She had half-risen from her chair and
now froze with one hand on the chair back first surprise, then alarm
entering her eyes.

"What's happened, Alan?  Is it Meredith?  She hasn't had another
accident, surely?"

"No.  Sit down, Rachel.  I want to ask you a couple of questions.

Think carefully before you answer them.  It's important."

She sat down, staring at him half-puzzled and half- amused.

"What's all this?  The third degree?  My goodness, you do look
solemn."

He ignored this and asked bluntly, "Where have you been all morning,
since Meredith and I left for our walk?"

"In here!  Where else?  Look at all this paperwork.  Who's going to do
it if I don't buckle down to it?"

"You haven't left this room?  Not for any reason at all?  Think,
Rachel!"  he urged her.

"To answer the phone, perhaps, or make a visit to the bathroom
anything?"

Her finely drawn eyebrows puckered.

"There's an extension to the phone in here!"  She pointed to it.

"I've been here all the time.  Alan, why are you asking me all this?"

He rode over her query.

"All right!  So have you received any visitors in here, then?  Anyone
at all?

Did you see anyone pass the window?"

Now she was visibly getting annoyed.  Green eyes snapped at him.

"No!

Alan what on earth is all this?  Some silly game?  Has being a
policeman gone to your head?  Isn't it enough that I've got Hawkins--'
"It's not a game!

You'd better brace yourself, Rach.  There's been another death.  A girl
called Gillian Hardy."

"Hardy?  Isn't that the great gawky lump who cleans up after Molly's
animals?  What do you mean, she's dead?  Did something happen at the
kennels?  " "It happened here, Rachel.  She's in the conservatory.

Hawkins will soon be on his way."  Belatedly he added, "I'm sorry!"

She was shaking her head, her eyes dilated with fear and
incomprehension.

"But she can't be!  Dead in my conservatory!  What was she doing in
there?"

Panic entered her voice.

"But if it's true, Hawkins will start grilling me about that as well as
about Alex!  It's going to make so much more trouble!  Why is this
happening to me?

What's gone wrong?  The house will be filled with policemen!  " She
darted forward and grasped his hands.

"You've got to stop it.

Explain to them I can't stand any more of this.  I can't answer any
more questions.  I don't know anything about this girl or why she's
dead.  Keep them all away from me, Alan!  " "I can't," he said
soberly.

He disengaged his hands from her grip and put them on her shoulders.

"I'll go and phone Hawkins now.  He should be at the hotel.  Hold up,
Rach.

It's a shock, but if you were in here and know nothing about it, just
tell them that."

Panic faded from her face and anger replaced it together with
stubbornness.

She shrugged her shoulders violently, freeing them.

"Let them badger me about something that's nothing to do with me?

Well, I won't have it!  It's out of the question!  " Green eyes
blazing, she added, "You were supposed to be here to protect me from
all this, Alan!"

Chapter Seventeen an incident centre had been set up in a small dark
sitting room at the rear of the Lynstone House Hotel.  It was near the
kitchens, and Markby could smell frying onions.  It made him feel
hungry, although he had breakfasted quite adequately that morning.  He
shifted awkwardly on his chair and asked without much hope, "Any coffee
left in that pot?"

"Doubt it," said Sergeant Weston but took off the lid to check.

"No.

I'll get Mrs Tyrrell to bring us another."  While he went on this
errand, Markby settled back and regarded the other two.

They stared woodenly back at him.  Perfect silence reigned.

Counting the absent Weston, four of them had gathered this morning, the
day following the discovery of Gillian Hardy's body: Markby himself,
Hawkins, Weston, and a newcomer, one of Weston's superiors, a Chief
Inspector Selway.

Selway was in on it now because this latest murder had been committed
on his patch and wasn't strictly speaking Hawkins's affair, even though
it was likely to be connected with Hawkins's inquiries into Alex
Constantine's death in London.  It was Selway's area, Selway's
investigation and Selway's incident room.  There was no doubt, although
Hawkins was superior in rank, that now Selway had taken over.

There was going to be, Markby reflected not without a certain
Schadenfreude, some fine drawing of parameters and very likely much
treading on constabulary toes.  Hawkins already looked more
pessimistic, something Markby would hardly have deemed possible.  His
features were fixed in despair like a tragedy mask in Greek drama, and
his lean frame was jack-knifed over the table to resemble a
half-unfolded seaside deck chair He wasn't a happy man.

Selway contrasted with him in every way: a square, bluff man with
small, sharp eyes in a red face.  He wore a disreputable tweed jacket
and smoked a pipe.  It was to let out the tobacco smoke that they'd
opened one of the sash windows a few inches at the top, which in turn
let in the onion smell.

You can't win, thought Markby.  Or at least, it certainly seemed he
couldn't.

Yesterday he'd spoken to Meredith of being back in Bamford by Friday,
now it seemed they'd be here indefinitely.  Both he and Meredith should
have hardened their hearts and left right after Alex's funeral.

Following on the discovery of Gillian Hardy's body, the remainder of
the previous day had been chaotic.  The scene-of-crime team had arrived
complete with all their paraphernalia.  They'd occupied both the
conservatory and the aviary, to the alarm of its feathered inhabitants,
which had demonstrated their disapproval in the time-honoured way of
all birds.  This had not been appreciated by the forensic men, who
eventually left, wiping down their clothing, lights and cameras with
tissues and muttering fiercely.  When the body had been removed and
departed on its sad journey to the mortuary, investigations had turned
in the direction of Rachel.  Markby winced inwardly at the memory.  She
had given a demonstration of histrionics which the late great Sarah
Bernhardt couldn't have equalled.  They'd had to call Dr Staunton to
her.  Selway, who hadn't met her before, had appeared quite
nonplussed.

Markby and Meredith had given brief accounts of finding the body, and
been warned they'd be interviewed again later at length.  Hence his
presence here this morning.  Having to go through it all again was both
tedious and annoying, and it was a salutary lesson in how witnesses
felt.  He'd be more sympathetic in future.  It was still better than
being back at Malefis with Rachel.  Her trip to London inevitably
cancelled, and the prospect of more police questioning ahead, she was
as approachable as an enraged tigress.

Meredith was coping well, but getting distinctly fed up.  She was not,
she had informed him snappily, a psychiatric nurse, she wasn't any good
at this sort of thing!  She seemed to think that his onetime marriage
to Rachel ought to have left him equipped to deal with the situation,
as if he could produce some magic formula to calm her down.

Hopeless.

Rachel blamed him for allowing the police to pester her.  Hawkins
blamed him for allowing a second murder to take place.  Even Mrs Pascoe
seemed to think it was his fault lunch had been ruined and abandoned.

Everyone, in short, blamed him.

Selway tapped the bowl of his pipe on the typed sheet before him.

"There's nothing else, then, Markby?  Nothing more you can recall which
could conceivably cast any light on any of this?

You know the situation best."

"No, I don't!"  said Markby irritably.

"Seems to me you must do," Selway replied, unmoved.  "You were married
to Mrs Constantine at one time, and you seem to have been on hand at ah
- all significant events."

It was a waste of time repeating that neither he nor Meredith had seen
Rachel for years before the ill-fated Chelsea trip.  Or that Gillian
Hardy had been as dead as the proverbial doornail when they'd found
her.  Markby said sharply, "I can't think of anything right now, but if
I do, naturally I'll tell you at once."

Selway murmured, "Yes, naturally," in a placating way.

Weston came back, followed by a flushed Mavis Tyrrell carrying a tray
with fresh coffee and cups.  She exchanged it for the tray of used
crockery on the table and asked, "Will you all be taking lunch,
gentlemen?"

There was a confused mumbling, and Selway took it on himself to speak
for them all.

"Yes, tell Troughton one o'clock if that's all right."

"That'll be fine.  I'll put a table in a quiet corner for you all."

Markby said, "I'll probably eat at Malefis.  Don't set a place for me,
Mavis."

"Right, sir."  Mavis acknowledged him but hesitated, her hands gripping
the tray, her eyes still fixed on Selway.

"Yes?"  Selway raised bushy eyebrows.

She flushed even redder.

"Nothing, sir, only I hope you catch him.

She was a harmless sort of girl, young Gillie.

She couldn't have done anyone any injury.  It seems so downright wicked
that someone could do such a dreadful thing to her!  She was a plain,
old-fashioned sort, a very good worker and as honest as the day is
long!

Molly James will be hard put to it to replace her and as for her poor
mum and dad!  Well, they're both in a dreadful state!  " "We'll do our
best," said Selway and smiled at her.  His baritone tones and
competent, relaxed manner did the trick.  Reassured, she trotted out
with the tray.

Hawkins, fidgeting with a ball-point pen, snapping the mechanism in and
out in a way highly irritating to others, muttered, "She'll expect us
to have nailed him by teatime."

"He's a bit of an artist, is old Hardy, Gillian's dad," said Weston
unexpectedly.

The other three turned a united gaze on him and, disconcerted by the
scrutiny of three superior officers all at once, the luckless sergeant
turned scarlet and blurted, "I just thought I'd mention it."

"Quite right, Gary," said Selway.

"Every little helps!  Pour us another cup pa

As Weston splashed coffee in and around the four cups, Markby asked,
"Is there anything you can tell me about the autopsy report, or would
you rather keep it to yourselves for the time being?"

"Don't see why not."  Selway spooned generous amounts of sugar into his
coffee.

"It was a single knife-thrust made by a long, thin blade, very sharp.

Not a kitchen or a craft- knife, more a stiletto-type.  The sort a
professional might use, and wielded by someone who knew what he was
doing.  The girl was attacked from the front with one thrust right to
the heart; she must have died instantly.

There was no sign of the weapon at the scene, so we assume the killer
took it away."

"And you think it's linked with the other killing Alex
Constantine's?"

Markby glanced from Selway to Hawkins.

"It's all cent red round that house.  I reckon we're only looking for
one killer," said Hawkins in deepest gloom.  Overlapping investigations
were fraught with pitfalls.  "Though I don't know why he needed to kill
the girl.

But I always suspected he was here in Lynstone, not in town!"

"Not in Chipping Norton, sir?"  asked Weston, misunderstanding.

"Town!"  barked Hawkins.

"London!  Not Chipping Ping- pong!"

Both local men looked affronted and Weston pugnacious.  Selway began to
refill his pipe which had gone out, knocking out the dottle and tamping
down fresh tobacco taken from a pouch on the table.

Markby seized the opportunity to get to his feet.  "Well, you won't
need me for a while.  I'll leave you to it."

It was fortunate, perhaps, that he couldn't hear the conversation in
the room he'd left.

"He and that lady friend of his seem to make a habit of being around
when the bodies drop in this affair, don't they?"  Selway put a match
to the bowl of his pipe and drew experimentally on it.

"What was he doing when Constantine got his ticket to glory?"

"Markby?  Taking a ruddy photo of the two women!"  Hawkins said
grimly.

"Seen it, this photo?"

"Not yet.  His sergeant in Bamford is sending the developed reel to him
here.  Ought to have turned up by now."  After a lengthy silence during
which Selway puffed and Hawkins snapped the ballpoint pen in and out,
Weston offered diffidently, "A woman could use a knife."

"Mrs Constantine?"  Hawkins's top lip rolled back in a wolfish grin.

"A very dangerous piece of goods in my estimation.  But she couldn't be
in two places at once, which brings us back to that photo Markby was
taking when Constantine was attacked."

"But she hasn't got an alibi for when Gillie Hardy was killed," said
Weston even more diffidently.

"She was supposed to be working in her husband's study.  But the
housekeeper was out shopping and Chief Inspector Markby and the other
lady had gone for a walk.  They vouch for each other.  It's a pity no
one else saw them up on Windmill Hill."

The other two stared hard at him.

Weston, committed to explaining his line of thought, went on in the
tones of a man voicing the unthinkable, "I suppose they couldn't all
three be in it together?  I mean, he used to be married to her, did
Markby, and the women go way back, to school days

Hawkins seemed to be attracted by this worst-case scenario.  He glanced
at his watch.

"We're going to interview that woman Mitchell before lunch, aren't
we?

Otherwise we'll be giving them even more time than they've already had
to hatch up a combined story!"

"Aren't we forgetting?  There was the incident of the falling stone
gate-ornament which nearly brained Miss Mitchell," Selway's placid
baritone reminded them.

"It missed her!"  said Hawkins.

"There were no witnesses to the incident and we've only got her account
of it.  We don't know it happened at all the way she tells it.  Markby
found her lying on the ground between the gate posts by the fallen
ornament.  Or he says he did.  Even if he did, who's to say it wasn't a
set-up scene?  Another thing, who found the nails in the wall?  Was it
you, lad?"

"No, sir.  Mr Markby had already found those before I arrived.  He
pointed them out to me."  Hastily Weston added, "But I would have found
them!"

There was another silence, then Weston said, "I didn't really mean to
suggest, I was just speculating.  After all, he is a chief
inspector."

The two senior men exchanged glances.

"The tabloids!"  said Hawkins in hollow tones.

"Someone found some tablets, sir?"  Weston looked puzzled.

"You want to wash your ears of a morning, son!  Tabloid journalists!"

"We don't get a lot of interest from those fellows in what we do down
here," said Selway.

"Not in the usual way of things."

"You're lucky," Hawkins told him.

"I've always got 'em under my feet!"  He drew a deep breath.

"And they do so love it when a copper goes wrong!"

Markby had returned to Malefis to relieve Meredith at Rachel's side.

Meredith made her way to the incident room to give her account of the
discovery of Gillian's body.

It was an uncomfortable experience.  She wasn't to know of the alarming
theories expressed by the police officers between Markby's departure
and her arrival, but she sensed an unease in the atmosphere.  She sat
across the table from Selway and Hawkins, with Weston lurking in the
background.  She rather liked the look of Selway, who was at least
pleasant and smiled, though his eyes remained sharp.  Hawkins glowered
at her.  Weston looked shifty, an expression which sat awkwardly on his
open features.

"You haven't been in Lynstone long, have you?"  Selway consulted his
notes.

"But you recognised this young woman, Gillian Hardy, when you found her
in the aviary, so I take it you'd had some dealings with her
already?"

"I'd met her.  I had coffee at the kennels with Mrs James and her
son.

Gillian was there.  She didn't say much."

"How did she strike you?

What sort of person?"

Meredith considered.

"Awkward but inoffensive.  She broke a cup."

"Case of nerves, perhaps?  Was anything said which might have caused
her to do that?"

"I - we were talking of Alex's death."  Meredith turned to Hawkins.

"I wasn't giving out any details!  I know better than to do that.  But
it was mentioned, naturally.  They wanted to know how Mrs Constantine
was, and if she meant to sell the house."

"Does she?"  Hawkins snapped upright.

"Yes, as it happens.  You can't be surprised.  It's too big for her
alone and, anyway, all the associations would make it an unhappy place
to stay on in."

Selway eased his way back into control of his interview.  "Was anything
said at this coffee meeting which indicated the girl was intending to
visit Malefis Abbey?  Did she talk about wanting to see Mrs
Constantine?  Or had she any other reason?"

"None at all.  She hardly said a word.  She didn't strike me as being
nervous, more being sullen.  I thought that was probably her
disposition."

They went through it all again and then they let her go.  She suspected
Selway wanted his lunch.

Meredith had to get back for lunch, too, at Malefis, but first she had
an errand to run.  George Naseby had failed to deliver the newspapers
that morning.  She got into her car and drove down to the Mini-Mart.

The little shop was empty when she entered it, but for the girl with
the frizzy hair.  She was sitting disconsolately behind her till,
alternatively sipping at a mug of tea and taking a bite from a
chocolate bar in her other hand.  Her eyes were red-rimmed and even her
hairstyle drooped.

"Hullo," said Meredith.

"I've come for Malefis Abbey's papers."

The girl set down her mug with a clatter.  She gave Meredith a wild
look, burst into tears and fled into the back of the shop, out of
sight.

From regions unseen an altercation broke out, clearly audible to the
surprised Meredith.

"I don't want to see no one from that place!"

"Look here, my girl, I pay you to see to my customers!  Don't be so
daft.  Go and give the lady the newspapers," returned a bass growl.

"You don't understand, George!  I can't face her, I can't face no one
from that horrible house!"  There were sounds of mounting hysteria.

"Oh, stop your nonsense.  If you can't pull yourself together, you'd
better go on home.  But I'm stopping your pay for time lost, all
right?

You're not sick, you're just playing up.  You want to control your
imagination, you do.

Stop reading them dam fool magazines!"

Heavy footsteps approached and a burly man in overalls appeared.  He
smelled of fuel and oil and was wiping his hands on a rag.

"Hullo, Miss.  Sorry about that.  Sorry about the papers, too.  The boy
never turned up.  I meant to get the van out and deliver them myself,
but I've been that busy and the girl's useless this morning.  You heard
her.  Gone barmy, she has.  Never had much sense and today she's got
none!"

Meredith collected the two newspapers.

"Was she a friend of Gillian's?  She must have known her.  I expect
she's upset."

"We all knew her.  Poor kid.  The family's always lived in Lynstone.

Wally Hardy paints house-signs and so on.  You'll have seen them around
the place.  That's them," George pointed at the notice on his counter
advertising the studio.

"But no, Tina there, she was never what you might call a friend of
young Gillie's.  Nothing in common.

Gillie had her head screwed on the right way!  Hardworking, sensible
sort of girl.  That one--' George Naseby jerked his head scornfully
towards the door through which his assistant had vanished 'she never
had a lick of sense!  I only give her a job because she's my wife's
niece.  It's all boys and pop music and silly magazines with her."  He
leaned forward like an affable bear.

"It's a boy this time, betcha!"

"Oh?"  Meredith took her time rolling up the two papers.  "Got a
boyfriend locally, has she?"

"Boyfriend?"  George burst into a great shout of laughter.  Then he
stopped in mid-guffaw and squinted cunningly at Meredith.

"Ah, well, that'd be telling, wouldn't it?"

Lunch at Malefis, after all this, was a tense affair.  Rachel pushed
food round her plate with a fork and muttered, "We'll never be rid of
them!  What was that wretched girl doing in my conservatory, anyway?

What did she want?  " "We don't know," Markby said.

"Possibly just to see the birds."

"Pah!  Don't talk rubbish, Alan!"

"Then because she wanted to see you?"

"That's even more ridiculous.  Why me?  I don't think I've exchanged
six words with her, ever!  And then only " good morning", that sort of
thing."

"Perhaps she brought a message from Molly or Nevil?"  Meredith
abandoned her attempt to eat.

"What's wrong with the phone?  And inside the aviary!  Why was she
inside the aviary?"

Rachel was still in a thoroughly bad temper, and meant everyone to know
it.

It was par for the course, thought Markby with a sigh, remembering many
a difficult marital squall.  Meredith's expression suggested it was a
tossup whether she'd get in her car and drive back to Bamford
regardless of Hawkins and Selway - incidentally abandoning him, too or
just pick up the nearest vegetable dish and tip it over Rachel.  He
just had to hope that many years of training in dealing with difficult
situations would stand Meredith in good stead now.

It was with understandable trepidation that he said to her, after
lunch, "I don't want to leave you in the lurch here, but there's
someone I'd like to talk to.  I really do need to go out for an hour or
two.  Can you cope?"

She fairly sizzled at him, hazel eyes afire and untidy hanks of glossy
brown hair falling over her face in disarray.

"Cope?

They'll fetch the men in white coats for me if this goes on much
longer!  But yes, I suppose I can stand it for another couple of
hours.

She's just indulging in tantrums, you know.  She didn't even see the
poor girl's body.

She's - she's impossible!  " Chapter Eighteen it took Markby longer to
walk down the hill to Church Lynstone than he'd anticipated.

Travelling there by car in Alex's funeral cortege had seemed such a
brief journey that he was surprised to find it was a good mile and a
half.

It was around four by the time he arrived.  There were a couple of cars
at Naseby's garage pumps, and two young women with babies in push
chairs chatting outside the Mini- Mart.  But he wasn't interested in
George Naseby's business empire.  He was interested in the terrace of
old stone cottages opposite The Fox pub.

At the front windows of one of them, at the end of the row, the
curtains were tightly drawn, even at this early hour.  In the country,
old observances lingered.  This little home was in mourning.  He
wondered whether, inside, mirrors had also been veiled, as had once
been the custom at times of death.

But he didn't knock at the low front door.  He took a chance, opened
the side gate, walked down a narrow alley and emerged at the back into
an untidy garden.  Facing him was a wooden shed.  Nailed to the wall
was a hand-painted notice in familiar style which announced, "Lynstone
Craft Studio'.  He rapped at the door and checked his knuckles to see
if the action had left him with splinters.

A voice called out to him to enter.  Markby lifted the rusty metal
latch.

A blast of warm air, heavy with the smell of paint and turps, greeted
him.  A middle-aged man with thinning hair, mottled grey and pale red,
spun his wheelchair and glared at him, brush in hand.

"Well?  Who've you?"

Markby explained who he was.

"I apologise for disturbing you.  You're obviously busy and anyway,
this is a difficult time for you and your family.  But I would like to
have just a few words with you, if you feel you're up to it."

"Up to it?  Hah!  They've already been here, the other police
officers.

There's nothing I could tell them or you, and you'll get no sense out
of my wife."

"I'm not here officially.  I must stress that.  I don't have any right
to ask you anything."

Mr Hardy sucked in his sunken cheeks, pursed his mouth and cast him a
sly look.  With his gingery hair, he looked quite vulpine, kin to the
creature he was painting on the large board propped on his easel.

"Well, at least you're honest!  You can ask me whatever you like but,
as I said, you'll learn nothing because there's nothing to learn.  My
girl's dead.

Maybe they'll find the bastard who did it, and maybe they won't.

Either way it won't bring her back to us, will it?"  His sharp nose
tilted.

"No," Markby said.

"So sit down, then!"  Markby took a seat on the kitchen chair beside
the artist, who had begun to work again.

"Pub sign," Hardy explained without looking at him.

"New one for the pub over the road."

"Very nice."  Markby struggled for a suitable compliment.  "It must be
gratifying to know your work is widely displayed all round Lynstone."

This is Church Lynstone," said Mr Hardy pedantically.  He leaned
forward and dabbed black on the nose of the vixen.

"Up the hill where you're staying, that's just Lynstone, if it's
anywhere.

When all those big houses were built up there, they wanted to say they
were in Church Lynstone, but the parish council wasn't having it.

Quite right.

They were on the other side of the parish boundary.  So they agitated
till they got the boundary moved.  But it didn't do them any good.

They're still Lynstone, pure and simple, and nothing to do with us!"

Obviously a fierce battle had raged over this matter and it wasn't
forgotten.

The lines were still drawn in the community, and the relative newcomers
who had brought about change still resented.

"I really am very sorry about your daughter," Markby said soberly.

Hardy grunted acquiescence.

"My wife's taking it bad."

"So are you, I fancy."

"Oh yes," Hardy said thoughtfully.

"I am too.  Poor, silly little kid."  He indicated Markby's chair.

"She used to sit there and talk to me while I worked."  There was a
silence, then he went on so quietly that Markby could hardly hear the
words, "Being stuck in this bloody chair, I can't do anything about
it.

I can't do anything about anything!"

The words, so quiet, filled the little shed with such bitterness and
pain that the ferocity of the emotions struck Markby like an electric
shock.

"That's what the police force is for, to do something about it," he
said.

"That's our job."

"Statistics!"  Hardy said sharply.

"Our Gillie is a crime statistic to your lot!"  He drew a long breath
from deep inside his chest and put down his paintbrush.

"Well, here's a few more facts and figures for you.  It'll make a
difference to our lives, no mistake, not having Gillie.  She didn't
earn much up at the kennels, but it all helped.  I'm registered
disabled, of course, and got my pension, such as it is.  I earn a bit
of pocket money now and then from painting signs like the ones you've
seen around the place.

My wife's never worked because there's no work for someone like her
around here, unless it's cleaning.  Then there's the car.  My wife
doesn't drive, but Gillie used to ferry her around, take her into
Chippy, that sort of thing.  Oh yes, it'll make a difference all
right.

" "Gillian enjoyed her work at the kennels?"

"Liked all animals."

"How about people?"

Hardy squinted at him.

"Got on well with Molly and had a crush on young Nevil.  Is that what
you wanted to know?"

"I'm not sure, Mr Hardy, what I want to know.  That is, I want to know
the identity of a killer.  I want something, anything, which might lead
me to him."

Hardy ran his tongue over his lower lip.

"Come along into the house," he said.

"Meet my wife.  She's found something might interest you.

Truth is, we don't rightly know what to do about it, but you might be
able to tell us."  The cottage's cramped little living room was
shabbily cosy.  Most of the furniture was cheap and threadbare, but
Markby noticed a couple of good pieces of turn-of-the- century
vintage.

They were lovingly polished and kept away both from direct light and
the open hearth.  He guessed these were 'family pieces', preserved to
be handed on to the next generation.  One day, if all had gone as it
should, Gillian would have owned that dark oak sideboard and the gate
leg table on its barley-twist supports.  But things hadn't turned out
as planned, and Gillian's death had abruptly ended a tradition, broken
a link.  He hoped there was still someone, some relative, who might yet
inherit the furniture in her stead.  He'd hate to think items so
piously cherished would all finish up in some antique or second-hand
furniture store, all memory of their modest history lost.

Mrs Hardy was also small and shabby, her eyes swollen with much
crying.

She looked defeated.  Markby wished there was something comforting he
could say to her, but there was nothing anyone could say to this poor
woman whom life had tired out completely.  She was just a shell,
showing little more animation than her daughter's lifeless corpse.

"I don't know, sir," she said to Markby, "I don't know why anyone would
harm Gillie."  The tears welled up again and she dabbed at them with
the corner of her apron.

Mr Hardy leaned forward in his chair.

"Show him the photo, Irene!"

Markby raised his head.  Mrs Hardy's sagging body jerked as if someone
had stuck a pin in her.  Something nickered in her faded eyes.  In
Markby's opinion it was fear.

"No, Wally..."  she whispered.  Tisn't seemly!  " "We've got to show it
eventually to someone, might as well be this feller," he insisted.

"Go on, fetch it here!"

She got unwillingly to her feet and stood, twisting her hands.

"He'll think badly of our Gillian, Wally.  It's not right.  She was a
good girl!  It will harm her memory, her good name!"

"Don't be afraid, Mrs Hardy," Markby said gently.

"Nothing will harm your daughter's good name, but it might help find
the person who killed her."

She looked unconvinced, but went to the oak sideboard and pulled open a
drawer.  With her hand inside it, she turned her head and explained, "I
found this in Gillie's room.  I was just tidying up in there, trying to
go through her things."  Her voice faltered.  A little more strongly
she went on, "I saw this piece of paper, as I thought it was, sticking
out by a cupboard, twixt that and the wall.  I just gave it a tug, not
thinking that it was hidden, you understand.  I thought it was a letter
or something, fallen down there.  But it was this."

She drew a thin square of card from the drawer and brought it to
Markby.

It was a photograph, mutilated in a way which spoke of a dreadful
hatred.

"This shows Mrs James?"  he guessed.

"That's her.  Why why would Gillie do that?  She liked Molly."  Mrs
Hardy looked and sounded quite bewildered.  "And she'd never done a
spiteful thing like that in her life.  It wasn't her nature."

"Gillian never did that!"  her husband roared, his voice making the
mantelpiece ornaments ring.

"Cut about a picture of old Molly James?

Why on earth should she?  Let me tell you something about my girl,
Markby.

She was loyal.  Look how she stayed here with her mum and me!

Molly was her employer and she would never have done thatV He jabbed a
finger at the photograph.

"But she had this in her possession," Markby pointed out.

"Not the same thing," Hardy snapped.

"As you, being a detective and a bit of a clever chap, should know."

"All right, so who did cut the photo about?  Any idea?"

"Yes, as it happens.  Who and why\ In fact, if you think about it, it's
obvious."  Mr Hardy gave an unpleasant grin.  "Mother's boy, Nevil,
that's who!"

"Oh, no, Wally, not his own mother's picture!"  Irene Hardy broke in,
shocked.

"That boy's not normal.  Stands to reason, he couldn't be, the sort of
life he's led."  Hardy shook his finger at Markby, emphasising each
word.

"Gillie stayed with us because she was a good girl.  Nevil's stayed
with old Molly because he's never had the guts to leave.  But he'd like
to, oh my, he would.  But he's weak, and weak people are dangerous
people, Markby!  Think I don't know about people and how their minds
work, just because I'm stuck here, eh?  Let me tell you, there may be
something wrong with my legs, but nothing's wrong with my brain.  If a
man spends all his time in a chair, as I do, what has he to do but
watch others and think?  I notice things another might not.  I've
always had that Nevil marked out as a very rum character.  I tried to
warn Gillie, but she, of course, thought he was a ruddy marvel!"

"He always seemed a pleasant young man to me, on the few occasions he
was here."  Mrs Hardy made a last attempt to defend Nevil.

"Shifty-eyed.  Never look straight at you.  Nothing to say for
himself.

I tell you, things go on in that boy's head neither you nor I would
care to know!  " Well, that was spelling it out, thought Markby.  He
picked up the photo.

"May I borrow this?  I'll pass it on to the right person."

"Aye, take care of it."  Mr Hardy subsided and waved his hand,
dismissing the photo.

"We don't want it about the house.  An evil thing, that is."

Outside the cottage, Markby hesitated.  The photograph, tucked away in
his inside breast pocket, crackled as he moved.  It was an evil thing,
Hardy was right.  Whether he was also right about Nevil being
responsible for the damage inflicted on it was another matter.  But
Markby had a feeling he probably was.

The churchyard lay a little beyond the cottages.  Markby wondered
whether the floral tributes still lay on Alex's grave, two days after
his funeral, and what sort of state they were in.  He turned his steps
in that direction.

The flowers were still on the grave, surviving quite well, although dew
had damaged the black and gold ribbon on Rachel's and the rosebud heads
were drooping.  Someone else was there ahead of Markby, stooping over
the various wreaths and posies to read the names on the attached
cards.

He straightened up as Markby approached and his burly form was
immediately recognisable.

"Just having a look at his flowers," said Chief Inspector Selway.

"Nice lot.  Always seems a bit of a waste to me, funeral flowers.  When
my parents died, we requested donations to charity in lieu of bouquets
and such because it seemed to make more sense.  But I have to admit,
there's something about these wreaths and so on which shows respect.

Without them, a funeral seems naked.  Not quite decent, if you know
what I mean."

Markby said carefully, "Strictly speaking, you're not so much
interested in his death as in Gillian Hardy's, are you?"

"I'm interested in all deaths if the murderer is around here
somewhere."

Selway squinted at him.

"All this has put you in a bit of a corner, hasn't it?"

"You could say so," Markby admitted.

"Might not look too good to some."

"I dare say not.  And I can't say I relish being on the wrong side of
the interview table.  Above all, I don't like having to sit back and
let others do all the investigating.  That's not a criticism of anyone
else's ability.

It's because I'm a copper and all my instincts are to pitch in
there."

Selway chuckled, then nodded at the grave.

"Know him well?"

"Hardly at all.  I only met him once.  I was introduced to him and
perhaps half an hour later he was dead.  The same's true for Miss
Mitchell, who met him at the same time.  But you'll know all the
circumstances."

"Hum.  What's brought you down to this end of Lynstone this afternoon,
then?

Just to look at a few damp, wilting carnations?"

"I went to pay my respects to Mr and Mrs Hardy."

"Oh yes?"  Selway's small eyes fixed him.

"Got anything interesting to say, had they?"

Avoiding direct reply, Markby began, "When I saw the girl, in the
aviary, something was trapped in her fingers.  I thought it was a piece
of card.  I couldn't make it out well."

Selway rocked on his heels and surveyed him.

"Yes, it was."

"Possibly the corner of a photograph."

"That's right!"  Selway's voice was sharp.

"Find the rest of it?"

"No, not yet."

Markby put a hand into his pocket and drew out the slashed glossy the
Hardys had given him.

"I fancy that, when you do, you'll find it's similar to this one, and I
shouldn't be surprised if it's not in much the same state."

Chapter Nineteen rachel was restless and querulous throughout the
afternoon.  Eventually Meredith, feeling that if she didn't get a break
for a hour she'd scream, managed to persuade her to take a couple of
the mild sedative tablets Dr Staunton had left, and lie down before
dinner.

"Call me when Alan comes back," Rachel ordered, throwing herself down
resentfully on the king-size bed.

"Yes, I promise."

"Where is he, anyway?"  She clenched her fist and struck a deep dent in
the topmost pillow.

She'd asked this question a dozen times that afternoon and Meredith
couldn't help but snap, "I don't know!"

But then the sad significance of Rachel's question struck her, making
her ashamed of her abruptness.  That monstrosity of a marital couch
with its gilded plum velvet headboard was the one Alex had shared with
his wife.  It was his absence from it and from her life, aggravated by
Gillian's murder, which was the reason for his widow's impossible
behaviour.  Now that Gillian had died, they were all in danger of
concentrating on this latest tragedy and forgetting the one which had
brought them all here.

Moreover, she still had nothing to tell Foster about that.  Meredith
perched on the satin quilt at the foot of the bed.

"Ray?  You do know Alex's name was Wahid originally?  Why did he change
it?"

Rachel tucked her arm under her head.

"Of course I know!  That ridiculous man Hawkins keeps asking me about
it.  As if it mattered, for goodness' sake!  I told you, when Alex left
Lebanon he went to Cyprus and ran his business there for a while.  He
felt there might be some prejudice against an Arab-sounding name on the
island.  He changed to a Greek-sounding one.  It's all quite simple."

"Didn't he have any family left in the Lebanon?"

"The men were all killed in the violence there, and I don't know what
happened to the women.  Don't you start, Meredith!  Hawkins is bad
enough.

It was all twenty-five years ago.  I didn't know Alex then.  He didn't
like talking about it.  It was painful.  Just as painful as it is for
me having to go through it all over and over again!"

"Sorry, Ray."  Meredith got up.

"You get some rest.  Let Staunton's pills do their stuff.  You'll feel
better later on."

As she made her way downstairs, she reflected that she really hadn't
been able to tell Rachel where Alan was because she didn't know.  He'd
only said vaguely that he wanted to see someone.  If that person lived
in Lynstone, he couldn't have gone far.

Meredith glanced at her watch.  It was just on six.  He must have got
back from his mysterious visit and had probably gone to the hotel,
putting off coming back to Malefis until it was time for dinner.  She
could hardly blame him.  But she, too, needed to get out of the
house.

Meredith pulled on a sweater and set out for the hotel.

A car was parked outside the gates in the lane.  By it stood a young
man in a belted raincoat drinking from a polystyrene cup.  Another
young man sat in the car holding a thermos.  As soon as he saw Meredith
emerge, the standing man pushed his cup through the open car window at
the driver and walked briskly to intercept her.

"Hullo!  Can you spare a couple of minutes?"  He smiled engagingly.

"To talk to the press?  No."  She tried to step past him.

He blocked her route.

"Just a couple of questions!  I need something to tell my editor!  Did
you know the girl who was found dead in the aviary?  Was she a frequent
visitor?

Is it true Mrs Constantine was alone in the house when it happened?

Are you a relative?"

"I make that four questions and I'm not answering any of them.  Go and
ask Chief Inspector Selway.  He's in charge."

"We'd prefer the personal angle," he told her confidentially.

"Well, you're not getting it from me."

She side-stepped him.  Just before she moved out of earshot, she heard
him say to his colleague in the car, "Miserable cow!  Shouldn't think
anyone got anything from her!"

That was spite talking, but it still hurt.  It was inevitable, with
Gillian's death in the house, that the interest in Malefis, which had
waned, should be renewed.  Foster would have read about the murder.

Whether he'd send her any message urging her to put safety before duty
was doubtful.  He'd told her to leave after the funeral and she
hadn't.

He'd absolved himself from any further responsibility.  Perhaps he
sensed she'd never been one to quit with a job half-done.

Quite a stiff wind had blown up during the latter part of the
afternoon.  Its edge was accentuated now that the mild evening.  ^ ^g g
down N^Vi, f 'ing sunshine had disappeared in early surface n ^s
shuddered and rustled as she walked the west\ -i < ^ane, debris bowling
along the road soon.  PA ^ a * e!  ". Dark clouds were scudding up from
worse.  Sians th were m ^or raln very As sin e weather was about to
change for the Hotel, ?  ^rned j andasn^(\ .  ^o the driveway of the
Lynstone House hood, s^K i-^i -cd behind her.  Meredith stepped aside
the reaM .  ^ Sports car, bright red with a black canvas black-st^
t>ntrano^ ^rew before great d^meed?  "The driver's door OPened and a ^"
g' woman OF r i ^g appeared, followed by its pair.  Then a her dri*'jY
s' reddish-brown hair and an arm, as the ^ ivcr; sirt."  tossing \y\
i^g sideways, stretched down to remove she slid u n ^ s and replace
them with stiletto courts, slammed the corner lnt0 t^e car behind
her.

Eventually Merw .i-" -i."  'lifficulty from the low seat and stood up,
, ."  t" a0^ pushed^ had' colourW han ost reacneu " y now.  The woman
"Hull^ (, * an mt0 the P00^^ of her loose, tanstayingi^ " up leaned
back against the car, watching.  Her \K y amiably as Meredith came
up.

"Are you age, th^g ^s l beauty ^g dirt, sky and ^S^y accented.  As for
her around (' u

"Ult to estimate.  That she'd once been a over-w\ " N. But wrinkles
beneath the eyes and and lirt^ * and the loss of a taut jawline had
been Her sh'^ i tor with lavish application of mascara aubur]i\iJ ip ^g
a raddled air to the still fine features.  ^ "Sth hair was an unlikely
shade of dark ^less she presented a note of flashy glamour, and the
car, the tan wool coat and the gold and black silk scarf knotted
carelessly around her neck were all expensive.

"No," Meredith told her, trying not to stare with too- obvious
fascination.

"A friend of mine is staying at the hotel.  I was just going to see if
he was there."

"Oh?"  Suddenly the woman smiled and held out a thin, be ringed hand.

"I'm Miriam Troughton.  My husband runs this this old pile!"  She gave
the building a disdainful nod.

Meredith shook the proffered hand and felt the heavy gold rings press
into her palm.  She gave her own name and added, "I'm staying with
Rachel Constantine."

Miriam Troughton's heavy-lidded brown eyes studied her briefly.

"Poor Alex," she said, her voice huskier and more foreign.

"I was so sorry when I heard of it.  I was away at the time.  Such a
shock.

How is Rachel?"

"Coping quite well, really," Meredith said diplomatically but not
altogether truthfully.

"Alex and I used to have a drink together from time to time."  Miriam
shrugged.

"I never understood how he stuck living here.  He could have bought a
house anywhere!  He was a rich, rich man!"  She crooned the last words
in almost sensuous admiration.  Then she leaned forward and in sharp
contrast hissed, "As for me, I must get away sometimes or I would go
mad!"  This was accompanied with a dramatic gesture sweeping Lynstone
House Hotel to oblivion, and followed by a tapping at her own
forehead.

Meredith thought the last piece of pantomime unnecessary.  She was
already getting the message about her companion's mental state.  Where
on earth did Jerry Troughton find her?  Mavis seemed to think he'd
acquired Miriam in the Middle East, and it would be interesting to
speculate in what circumstances this auspicious encounter had taken
place.

She might have been working as a dancer or singer in some nightspot.

Perhaps as a hostess, whatever that implied.  Or alternatively, she
could have been mistress to a rich man who'd tired of her.  There was
more than a suggestion of the poule de luxe about Mrs Troughton.

Certainly there was a street-wise ness in those painted features which
suggested she was no daughter of a respectable house.

As to why such a formidable lady had married ordinary little Mr
Troughton, maybe that wasn't a mystery.  Meredith had come across such
marriages of convenience before.  Wherever it was that Jerry had run up
against Miriam, she must have needed to get out, perhaps in a hurry,
and had faced some difficulty.  She might simply have had no money.

She might have already tried to leave under her own steam and been
impeded in some way.  Most likely her circumstances wouldn't have
qualified her to take up permanent residence in Europe or America, even
if the authorities of any country had been prepared to let her enter in
the first place.  Mr Troughton had come along at the right moment, an
unlikely knight errant, and rescued this damsel from her distress.

At the time she would have been grateful, and it must have been a a
rare and heady experience for Mr Troughton to have a beautiful,
sophisticated woman on his arm and in his debt.  But gratitude has a
way of wearing thin.  Miriam no doubt considered that any obligation
towards her saviour had long been fulfilled.  For his part.  Jerry had
probably had plenty of time to rue his chivalrous impulse.

Miriam leaned forward.

"This girl who was found dead, I heard she was in the birdcage.  Can
that be right?"  A pencilled eyebrow twitched.

"So bizarre!  A corpse and all those little birds flying about it!

Grotesque but interesting, don't you think?"

"Yes, she was in the aviary.  We don't know how she came to be
there."

Meredith would have agreed that it was bizarre.  Whether she'd have
described it as 'interesting' was another matter.  She said, "It was
rather a surprise."

Miriam thrust her hands into her pockets again and hunched her
shoulders.

The wind whipped up her long hair and the trailing silk scarf, making
her look quite witch like "My dear, nothing would surprise me about
this place.

It gives out terrible vibrations.  I'm sensitive to such things.  Are
you?"

Meredith said, "I'm not psychic, if that's what you mean."

"Never mind."  Miriam touched her arm sympathetically.  "It's a very
rare gift and not granted to everyone, you know."  Without warning, she
scrabbled at the silk scarf and dragged out a thin gold chain on which
was some kind of amulet in green stone.

"I always wear this.  It protects against the Evil Eye!"  She turned
her head aside, raised her hand and spat neatly between the first and
second fingers.

By now Meredith was firmly of Rachel's expressed opinion that Mrs
Troughton was batty.  If not exactly raving, still definitely odd and
considerably alarming.

Suddenly Miriam's expression changed.  The brown velvet eyes rested
enigmatically on Meredith's face.

"But at least poor Alex, perhaps he is now at rest?  What do you
think?"  And without waiting for an answer, she walked past Meredith
into the hotel.

By the time Meredith reached the entrance hall, Miriam had already
vanished, presumably into some private area.  Well, fascinating though
it might be to learn more about that lady, any effort spent doing so
would be an interesting but unhelpful diversion, because Meredith was
now quite sure of one thing.

The woman she'd glimpsed in the grounds of Malefis, and seen again at
Alex's funeral, had not been Miriam Troughton.

Alan wasn't in his room.  She wondered what had kept him so late.

She'd have to tell him later about Miriam, It seemed as though, instead
of finding answers to questions, she kept finding more mysteries.

The reason Markby hadn't returned to the hotel was that he was sitting
in the bar of The Fox, which had just opened for the evening, with
Selway.

There was no rush of trade at the moment.  The landlord was polishing
glasses behind his bar, and a couple of elderly locals had taken up
what was probably their regular position in a far corner against the
wall.  There they sat, side by side, staring at the two strangers and
occasionally taking a sip from tankards of beer.  They made no
conversation, probably having long since said anything they had to say
to one another.  One of them had brought a dog which wandered round the
bar room, sniffing at the stained carpet and gobbling up stray potato
crisps and peanuts which had fallen down behind the seats.

Selway returned from the bar and set down the two pints.  Beer slopped
over the glasses and dribbled on to the ring- marked tabletop.

I like pubs like this one," Selway announced as he lowered himself on
to a blackened oak settle.

"No frills.  No foreigners, people who drive out from the nearest town
of an evening and take over some country pub, making it useless for the
locals."

Markby sipped his beer.

"I'm a foreigner here, you might say."

Selway grunted.

"You gave us a bit of problem, you know."

"I had realised," Markby couldn't help but sound wry.

"I understand.

If I were in your shoes, I'd be wondering about my role, too."

"We did discuss the possibility that you might be holding out on us."

Selway's placid baritone voice made the potentially offensive words
seem only fair comment.

"We had to consider it, especially in view of your former relationship
to the widow.  You've got yourself quite involved in all this, one way
and another."

"It wasn't my intention!"  Markby sounded bitter.  He sighed.

"I've told you all I can.  I can only ask you to believe that."

"I believe it.  Besides," Selway tapped his pocket.

"You've just handed over a very significant piece of evidence.  I think
we'll exonerate you!  But mind you, I can't speak for the
superintendent!"

"Hawkins?  I'm a man who takes photos of roses while someone is
murdered six feet away!  I'm never going to live that down!"  He
glanced at his companion.

"Irene Hardy didn't want to hand over that picture.  She's worried word
might get around Gillian was responsible.

I promised her the police would be discreet.  Both parents are adamant
Gillian wasn't the sort for an act of mindless spite.  Wally's got his
own ideas as to the culprit, of course!  " "So you said.  Do you think
he's right and Nevil James slashed the picture?  " Above the rim of his
beer glass, Selway's bushy eyebrows twitched.

"I think it's very likely.  From all I've learned about Gillian, she
wasn't the type.  She seems to have been a simple sort; I don't mean
backward, just uncomplicated.  Seeing issues in stark terms, unaware of
pitfalls.  She also seems to have nursed a silent passion for Nevil.

If Nevil is in need of psychiatric help, as the mutilated photo
suggests, then Gillian wouldn't have realised that.  She'd only have
thought he was confused and unhappy and she'd have blamed his
infatuation with Rachel for that.  He wouldn't give Rachel up so, as
Gillian saw it, Rachel had to be persuaded to give up Nevil.  Ordinary
argument wouldn't have helped.  So she tried to frighten Rachel off."

Markby drank some of his pint and added in parenthesis, "I'm giving you
Gillian's view of it here.  I'm not saying she was right.  Frankly, I
personally don't think Rachel wants or ever wanted Nevil!  However,
Gillian thought differently, and might have decided that if she showed
the damaged photo to Rachel and told her Nevil had done it, that would
alarm Rachel sufficiently to make her break with Nevil completely."

"Hmn!"  Selway reached for his tobacco pouch.

"So young Gillian goes over to Malefis with the picture and slips in
through the conservatory, intending to find Rachel Constantine and show
her the evidence.  But Mrs C. claims Gillian never found her.  If she's
telling us the truth--' Selway darted a glance at Markby from his sharp
little eyes 'then Mrs Constantine spent her entire morning undisturbed
in the study, totally unaware anyone had entered the house.  But young
Gillian met someone in the conservatory!  Not Mrs Pascoe who was in
town, shopping.

Nor Martin the gardener who says he was working at the other end of the
grounds and didn't see anyone.  So either someone is lying or we're
looking for someone we haven't even thought of!  Got any ideas on
that?

" "I wish I had," Markby said soberly.

Selway filled his pipe and drew at it until he got it going.  The dog,
an elderly greyhound, came up to Markby and sniffed at his knee.  He
patted its bony head, but since he had no food it wandered away
again.

"Has it got anything to do with Constantine?"  Selway asked abruptly.

"Or are we after some quite different motive and murderer?"

"I don't know how Constantine's death fits into the picture with
Gillian's, but it does," Markby said firmly.  "I'm pretty sure we're
looking for the same killer, although the modus operandi and weapon are
obviously different.

That's because he hadn't originally intended to kill Gillian; hadn't
had time to plan her death as he did Alex's.  Somehow the poor kid got
in his way and he killed her in an act of desperation.  Why in the
aviary?  We don't know.

But we can be sure the murderer's action was triggered by the
photograph because he delayed his escape long enough to wrest it from
the dead girl's grip.  Poor, simple Gillie knew that the photo was
capable of causing trouble.  But what she didn't know was that it was
dynamite!"

Markby hissed in frustration.

"It's like a half-completed jigsaw puzzle, the unsorted bits jumbled
together in a box."

"The bits in place don't help much," Selway mused through a cloud of
aromatic blue smoke.

"We've got a man who lived in Lynstone but is killed in London.  Plus a
rather nastily mutilated photograph of an eccentric but harmless local
resident, hidden away in the bedroom of a gormless girl who winds up
dead in a birdcage!  What's the link?  Nevil James?  He wasn't in
London on the day Constantine was murdered.  He's got witnesses to
prove he was here."

"One of them would be Gillian herself, and she's now dead," Markby
pointed out.

"There's a woman, a Mrs Lang, who brought a dog to the kennels for
boarding that day and delivered it to Nevil.  She's been interviewed
and she's certain.  She's the sort of woman who remembers young men.

Nevil made quite an impression.  She's a quite independent witness, and
the superintendent accepts that Nevil didn't leave Lynstone that day.

Still, that's Hawkins's case.  Mine is Gillian Hardy's death.  "
"Gillian's death resulted from panic," Markby said slowly.  "I feel
sure of that.  The killer panicked.  He may, you know, panic again."

"We all keep saying " he"," Selway's sharp gaze rested on Markby.

"But another piece of our jigsaw is a beautiful and wealthy widow.  You
know that " who benefits?  " is one of the first questions we ask in a
case like this.  So far the only one who seems to have profited from
Constantine's death is his widow, whom he left very comfortable.  I
know this is difficult for you, but you may have to accept she had a
hand in it."

Markby was silent for a while.

"I know.  But physically she couldn't have killed her husband, because
she was posing for a photo when he was struck.  Nor do I believe she
conspired to kill him.  Why should she?  By all accounts he doted on
her and lavished everything she wanted on her.  Why kill the man?  To
put it crudely, why kill the goose which laid the golden egg?  If she
just wanted to be rid of him, she could have divorced him and got a
very nice settlement out of him.

Believe me, that's the way Rachel would do it."  He grimaced.

"I know!  " Parting from Selway, having declined his offer of a lift
back to the hotel, Markby set off again on foot.

If previously his journey had been all downhill, it was perforce all
uphill going back.  He hadn't refused Selway's offer because he had
relished the prospect of slogging up a steep slope against the wind,
but because he hadn't wanted to risk Hawkins see him return in Selway's
car.  It wouldn't do if the superintendent took it into his head that
Markby and the local man had formed some kind of alliance against
him.

He wasn't the only one walking, however.  As he trudged on, his legs
beginning to ache and the realisation forcing itself on him that he
wasn't as fit as he'd fancied, he saw another figure ahead.  The man, a
young man by the looks of it, was making even slower progress than
Markby.  He was either even more unfit, or dawdling because he didn't
want to arrive any sooner than he had to, wherever he was bound.  As he
slowly overtook him, Markby realised it was Nevil James who mooched
along with his hands in his pockets and his head well down.

"Hullo there!"  he hailed him cheerfully.

Nevil looked over his shoulder and stopped to allow Markby to join
him.

He didn't look over-enthusiastic at the meeting, and returned Markby's
greeting with a hangdog air.  But the breeze had freshened his sallow
complexion and tousled his hair, so that he did look more of a
countryman and less of a recluse than usual.

"I've been to visit the Hardys," Markby informed him.  "Their
daughter's death is a terrible blow for them."

"I know," Nevil mumbled.

"I've just been there too.  They said you'd called."

Markby wondered how the Hardys had received Nevil, especially after Mr
Hardy's forthright and unflattering opinion of the young man, as
expressed to the chief inspector.

As if he knew what Markby was thinking, Nevil went on, "I don't know if
they appreciated my calling.  Irene kept crying.  Wally never did like
me before, and he acts as if he likes me even less now.  You seem to
have made a good impression, though.  Irene said you were " a real
gentleman."  Here Nevil cast Markby a sideways glance with a good deal
of malice in it and a tinge of mockery.

Markby could afford to ignore that, but felt he ought to account for
the time he'd obviously spent elsewhere in Lynstone after calling at
the cottage.

"I had a pint over at your pub.  Bit gloomy in there."

"What did you expect," Nevil retorted, 'around here?  " "I see what you
mean.  It is quiet.  You've never thought of going away?

Getting a job in town somewhere?"

"I've thought about it," Nevil muttered.

"Doing it is something else.

Have you met my mother?  " "Not exactly.  I have heard quite a lot
about her.  She's apparently a local personality!"

"Ma?"  Nevil cast him a jaundiced look.

"Oh, she's got bags of character, I suppose.  She's had a tough life.

My father walked out on us, you know."

"I didn't know, but I'm sorry to hear it."

"You don't have to apologise to me.  I don't remember him.  Ma can't
forget him, that's her trouble!  I can't leave her and the kennels.

She couldn't manage without me.  You see..."  Nevil stopped again and
turned to face his companion.

"You see, she isn't as capable as she thinks she is.  Oh, she's got
lots of get-up-and-go and determination and so on.  But she's got her
weak spots too."

"Like Achilles," Markby smiled.

"We all have."

"Achilles?  Oh yes, chap with the dodgy heel.  Listen, is it true you
were married to Rachel once?"

"I was.  Does it worry you?"

Nevil looked slightly taken aback.

"No well, yes.  I mean, doesn't it upset her having you around again?

It's a bit tactless, isn't it?"

"She invited me to come," Markby said, gently reproachful.

"She's got me!"  Nevil's voice rose plaintively.  He sounded like a
child deprived of a favourite possession by an unjust adult.

"Nevil..."  Markby hesitated.  It wasn't for him to tell this young
romantic that Rachel didn't give tuppence for him.  He'd have to find
out eventually.

Probably he knew it already in his heart but didn't want to accept
it.

"Let Rachel make up her own mind what she wants," he said
diplomatically.

"You think she doesn't want me?"  Nevil's pale face glowed either from
buffeting by the stiff breeze or from anger.

"What the hell do you know about it?"

"Nothing."  It was time to change the subject.

"Both you and your mother must be very upset about Gillian Hardy's
murder.

Working so closely all these years, she must have been a friend as well
as an employee."

The energy lent to Nevil by anger vanished.  He shrank back and then
began to walk on up the hill at a rapid pace.  He couldn't keep the
speed going and eventually slowed, panting.  Markby caught up with him
again.

"She was a good sort, Gillie," Nevil told him in a thick voice between
gasps.

He kept his head down and Markby couldn't see his face.

"Her parents clearly depended on her a great deal," he returned.

"They'll find it difficult to manage, especially as she was their
driver and her father is disabled.  They're high and dry now in that
cottage."

"I know all that!"  Nevil shouted, the wind snatching his words away.

"I've just been there, haven't I?  You don't have to keep on about
it!

Who are you, anyway?  Just turning up here, meddling in our affairs,
poking your nose in--' His voice choked with emotion and he began to
walk on rapidly again, determined to leave Markby behind.  This time he
didn't flag and, as he'd obviously have dropped with exhaustion before
he allowed the other man to catch up, Markby let him go.

By the time he got to the hotel, Nevil was out of sight.

Mr Troughton greeted him in the entrance hall.

"Your friend Miss Mitchell was here, Chief Inspector!  Looking for you,
I understand."

He shook his head sadly.

"You've missed her!"

After failing to find Alan, and not wanting to go straight back to
Malefis, Meredith had walked back to Windmill Hill and, ignoring the
two young men, on up the hill to the top.  By now the wind had grown
both strong and chill, and the sweater couldn't keep it out.  The view
from the top was as spectacular as before, but more desolate today.

There

was something prehistoric about it.  This landscape had changed very
little in centuries since man had first built his wattle-and-mud huts
here.

Thoughts of primitive shelters reminded her of the den she and Alan had
found on their last visit up here.  She trudged, head bowed against the
wind, toward the mound and along the narrow footpath through the tall,
rustling grass.

The flattened turf had been ruffled up by the wind but, otherwise, the
place was as they had left it with one exception.  A second cigarette
packet lay alongside the original one.  Meredith blinked at it.  She
was sure or almost sure that there had only been the one empty packet
here before.  She could be wrong.  This other one might have lain
nearby unnoticed in the grass and now, dislodged by the wind, had blown
along the ground to join the first.  It was the same brand.

Suddenly she thought of the two journalists who'd waylaid her
earlier.

"The press!"  she exclaimed aloud.  "They've had a man up here,
watching us.

Probably with a telescopic lens.  Cheek!"  She glared at the cigarette
packets.

Nevertheless, it was reassuring to think this was a likely
explanation.

She felt very alone up here and glanced uneasily over her shoulder.

If whoever had left the original litter had indeed been back, he or
they might come again.  Pressman or not, she didn't want to meet him.

She realised that she was getting very cold.

Hugging her arms and glad of the excuse to leave, she hurried back down
the hill to the house.  As she turned into the drive past the gate
posts, one with pineapple and one now without, the first specks of rain
spattered on her face.

ither the rain or her earlier churlish attitude had temporarily driven
away the reporters, so she wasn't able to ask if they'd had a spy on
the hill.  She wondered, as she ran indoors, whether Rachel was awake
yet upstairs.  The answer came immediately.

From the rear of the house in the region of the conservatory came a
shrill shriek and a muffled cry of, "Get away!  Get away!"

"Rachel!"  Meredith, her heart in her throat, raced through the
intervening rooms and burst into the conservatory.

The door of the aviary swung open wide.  Rachel cowered in the middle
of the glass-walled room, both arms folded tightly over her head.  All
around her flew the canaries which had escaped from their wire prison
and were exulting in their new freedom.  They swooped and fluttered and
twittered excitedly; one came down and landed on the nape of Rachel's
neck as she hunched on the floor.

"Get it off me!"  she yelled from within the protective shelter of her
arms.

"They can't hurt you, Rachel!"  Meredith, exasperated, caught at
Rachel's shoulder and pulled her upright.

"For goodness' sake, they're only little birds not great vultures!  How
did they get out?

And I thought you were resting."

"I hate them!  I hate them!"  Rachel flapped wildly at a circling
canary.

"I woke up and came down here because Staunton's silly pills didn't
work.  I only tried to feed those wretched birds!  Nevil didn't come
over this morning and do it.  I suppose because the police were here,
crawling all over the aviary floor.  So I got some seed, opened the
door and steeled myself to go in, then, whoosh!  The ungrateful brutes
all rushed out, straight past me!

How on earth are we going to get them back in again?"

"I don't know, but if we can keep them all in the conservatory, we'll
get them back a few at a time.  We'll put seed in the aviary.  They'll
get hungry and go inside after it."

"They can starve for all I care!  I'm never going near them again.  I'm
going to ring the local cage birds society tomorrow first thing and get
them to take them all away.  Anyone can have them!"

At that moment the handle of the door from the conservatory into the
garden rattled.  Meredith turned her head sharply in time to see it
open and Martin appeared in the gap.

"Watch out," she called urgently.

"The canaries are loose!"

Some of the birds, attracted by the current of fresh air, had already
swooped towards the opened door.  Martin automatically threw up his arm
to shield his face, but luckily had the wit to step inside and slam the
door shut at the same time.

"Who has let them out?"  he asked severely.

"I saw through the glass that they new everywhere!"

"I didn't let them, they got out!"  Rachel shouted at him.

The gardener raised his hands in a soothing gesture.

"It's all right.

I'll take care of it.  Madame, madame, listen!  " Rachel had put her
hands over her ears.

"You can go in the house and I'll drive them back somehow."

"Just see to it!"  Rachel dived through the door into the sitting room
beyond.

"Mademoiselle?"  Martin looked towards Meredith who was standing
staring at him.

"You can go too.  I can take care of all this."

"What?  Oh, yes, yes..."  Meredith followed slowly after Rachel.

Something had just happened, something which touched a forgotten chord
in her memory but not strongly enough.  Something, but what?

Chapter Twenty As he entered the hotel's breakfast room the following
morning, Markby heard himself hailed.

"Chief Inspector!  There's some post come for you!"

Markby turned.  Troughton, much harassed in appearance, his thinning
hair dishevelled and bags under his eyes, hurried up and thrust a small
package at him.

"Everything all right?"  Markby asked.

Troughton's button nose twitched and his marmoset eyes shone with
panic.

"Yes, yes!  It's all all quite all right.  My wife has come home, you
see..."

He scampered away into the kitchen regions.  Markby shrugged.  We all
have our troubles.

Mavis didn't look as placid as usual, either, as she served him his
plate of bacon and eggs.  Even the bacon looked shrivelled and ashamed
of itself and the tomatoes were burnt.

"Anything wrong, Mavis?  Troughton looks a bit bothered."

"Look at those tomatoes!"  said Mavis, gazing down at the plate in
front of him.

"If I'd noticed I wouldn't have served them up to you.

She came into the kitchen bothering me while I had them under the grill
and it quite put me off.  Before I knew it, the grill had got far too
hot and there I was with a part of sausages like bits of wood.  I had
to throw them in the bin.

That's why you haven't got any."

"Mrs Troughton?"  Markby ventured.

Mavis heaved a deep sigh.

"You've no idea, sir!  It's that quiet and peaceful when she's away.

But as soon as she comes back, things go wrong, just like that grill!

Cups get broken.  Deliveries don't show up.  Do you know, a whole rack
of saucepans fell off the wall last night?"

"I thought I heard a distant clatter."  Markby picked up his knife and
fork and prepared to assault dry rashers and caramelised tomatoes.

"It's her!"  Mavis hissed into his ear.

"I'm not superstitious, but I swear I always know when she's about!  I
get a funny feeling crawling over me!  And the cat won't go near her,
neither!"

With that she made off, her tray under her arm.  She passed Hawkins in
the doorway.

"What's all that about?"  asked Hawkins, taking his seat at the
neighbouring table.

"Witches in the woodwork!"  Markby told him.

"They're all barmy down here," was Hawkins's opinion as he opened his
newspaper.  Markby was amused to see it was one of the reviled
tabloids.

"Let me get back to London and sanity, that's all I want!"

While Hawkins was engaged in tut-tut ting over Page Three's busty
beauty, Markby opened the package Troughton had given him.  It held the
developed photographs from his Chelsea visit.  He opened his mouth to
call out to the superintendent, but then changed his mind.  Let Hawkins
finish his breakfast and his paper and give Meredith the opportunity to
take a look at these pictures with him first.  There was always a
chance she'd spot something he didn't.

A shadow passed the window and he looked up just in time to catch a
glimpse of a woman passing by.  She was a stranger to him and of
striking appearance, with long, reddish-brown hair.  She strode past,
heading for the main gate.

"Mrs Troughton, I presume?"  murmured Markby to himself.

Taking herself off for a walk by the look of it.  They must be mightily
relieved in the kitchens!

Meredith too was out and about, just setting off from Malefis for the
hotel.

There was a definite bite to the air this morning, indicating they were
in for one of those lapses of nature when spring forgets itself and
slides back into winter for a few days.

Despite the nip in the air, Martin was early at work in laudable
fashion.

She couldn't see him, but she could hear the clip-clip of garden
shears, and from time to time the blanket of shrubs growing over the
boundary wall shivered as it was attacked.  Not before time, it was
being trimmed back.  As she neared, she heard the gardener's voice.  He
was speaking loudly to someone in French.

Curious, Meredith walked through the gates and turned to go down the
hill.

Martin was on top of a ladder propped against the wall on the lane
side.  The ground around him was covered with pruned sprays, but he had
stopped work for the moment.  Twisted sideways on his ladder, with one
foot on a rung and his elbow resting on the stone coping of the wall,
the shears dangling from his free hand, he was conducting a
conversation with Mrs Troughton, who stood below him in the lane.  A
very earnest exchange by the look of it, and probably about Gillian's
murder.  Mrs Troughton had already shown interest in that.

As they became aware of Meredith, however, the speakers broke off; both
turned their attention to her.

Martin, maintaining his unsafe if acrobatic hold, called down with a
smile, "Good morning, mademoiselle!"

He swung back into position with balletic grace and resumed work.  A
shower of clippings rustled to the floor.

Miriam advanced, also smiling but brown eyes calculating.  She wasn't
taking any chances with the cool air this morning, thought Meredith.

She wore a quilted jacket and, perhaps as a concession to walking,
low-heeled taupe suede boots.  She still managed to look as if she
ought to be strolling down Bond Street.

"My dear!"  she exclaimed to Meredith.

"You are like me, an early bird.  You are taking your constitutional,
perhaps, as I am?  I must walk every morning for the digestion, you
know.  It is English food.

It lies on the stomach as if one had swallowed a feather bolster!  I
eat only fruit for my breakfast, of course.  But English fruit pah!

Wrinkled apples and tiny, tiny oranges!  " "I'm just going to the
hotel," Meredith said hastily, before she could be invited to join
Miriam on her healthy stroll.  She could have argued that Miriam's
description of fruit available in England was highly unjust, but it
would have been a waste of time.

As it was, she had hit upon another source of grievance to Mrs
Troughton.

"The hotel!  In the mornings it drives me mad!  I cannot stand it!"

She shuddered dramatically.

"The smell of frying, the fat, the bacon and eggs.  I was in the
kitchens earlier to tell that silly woman, that Mavis, to open all the
windows.  But she became very agitated and threw all the food into a
waste-bin.  Can you imagine it?  " "Yes, I can," said Meredith
truthfully, picturing the scene.

Miriam drew nearer and plucked at Meredith's sweater.  "You are warm
enough in this?  It's so cold today.  You see, I've taken my winter
jacket.  Just think, at this time of the year!  But it's always cold
here at Lynstone, isn't that so, Martin?"  She pronounced his name in
the French way.

"Yes, madame," said the gardener obediently from his perch above
them.

He met Meredith's eye and gave her the faintest grin of complicity.

"Wind, snow, ice!"  declared Mrs Troughton, despite the fact that it
was still a fine spring morning, even if it was chilly.

"A dreadful climate and a dreadful place!"  She lowered her voice.

"My dear, I dreamed of you last night."  She rolled her 'r' heavily.

"Did you, of me?"  Meredith sounded as startled as she felt.

"It has a meaning.  All my dreams have meanings."  She pursed her
scarlet lips.

"I'll work it out for you while I walk.  I'll write it all down and
send it over for you.  Don't thank me.  I do it because it is a gift I
have been given."  She pointed heavenward.

"I must, you see, pass it on."

With that she resumed her constitutional, making for the summit of
Windmill Hill with the resigned elegance of an aristo en route for the
scaffold.

"Don't worry, mademoiselle," said Martin consolingly from above.

"When Mrs Troughton tells your fortune, it's always very good!"

Meredith laughed.

"That's nice to know... You were speaking French with her."

"Mrs Troughton speaks very good French," Martin bestowed an accolade.

"She is of course, tres cosmo polite And also, she has chic.  Une femme
formidable!"  He gazed down meditatively at Meredith's slacks, sweater
and walking shoes.

"I'll let you get on with your work," she said, deciding it was time to
move on before Martin could further observe her lack of chic or inquire
how fluent she was in French.

As she walked on she reflected that 'formidable' indicated 'splendid'
in French, but the English sense of formidable was one she would have
applied to Miriam.

She began to wonder if she'd been wrong, at their first meeting, to
dismiss Mrs Troughton as intriguing but not important.  Ideas began to
buzz through Meredith's head.  Miriam, who spoke such good French.

Educated Lebanese all spoke French.  Miriam's hair colour.  That
particular shade of red often resulted from attempts to lighten
naturally black hair.

Rachel had said that, with the exception of Alex, all the men in his
family had been killed.  As for the women, Rachel 'didn't know what had
happened to them'.  What did happen to such women?  In cultures where
women by ;; tradition didn't work or live independently but were always
;| under the protection of their menfolk whether fathers, g brothers,
uncles or husbands it would be disastrous if < something happened to
deprive them of such protection.  If ;;j they had no money either, they
would be obliged to seek a i| male protector elsewhere.  If such a
woman had been ;| deserted by a male relative who would otherwise have
been | expected to care for her, she would never forgive him.  ^
Forgiveness was not much in the tradition of the Middle '4 East.

Vengeance was.  g 's| Is it possible?  thought Meredith, pausing in the
driveway to the hotel.

Could Alex, when he arrived in Lynstone after so many years away from
his native land, have found himself faced with an avenging fury?

Miriam had chic, all right, and that sort of chic cost plenty.

Jerry Troughton couldn't stump up that sort of pin money.  Rachel
thought Miriam had resources of her own.  But was it possible that
blackmail paid for the sports car, the designer clothes, the holiday
breaks away from the hated Lynstone?

Meredith walked on slowly.  Alex had liked to drink in the bar at the
hotel of a lunchtime, usually alone.  But Miriam, so she claimed, had
sometimes joined him.  They'd been friendly.  Friends?  Or simply
beating out the details of a regular allowance which would guarantee
Miriam didn't make trouble?

She wondered again what Miriam and Martin had been talking about.  Had
Miriam perhaps been trying to find out some little detail she could
turn to personal advantage?  One lucrative opportunity for blackmail
removed, had she been seeking another?  A chance to bleed Rachel as
she'd bled Alex?

But one thing Miriam surely wouldn't have done, if Alex was paying her
an allowance: no matter how much she might have hated him, she wouldn't
have killed him.

Meredith walked into the breakfast room just as Markby was finishing
Mavis's burnt offering.

"Hullo," he said.

"Want some coffee?"

"No thanks, I've had breakfast.  Rachel's gone to see Dr Staunton to
get him to prescribe her some stronger pills.  Malefis is getting me
down.  I wish I was staying here."

"Not if you had to eat the breakfast I was given just now!"

Markby took her arm.

"Let's go into the lounge.  I've got the developed reel from the
show."

They passed by Hawkins, scraping marmalade over the last of his
toast.

"Good morning, Superintendent," said Meredith politely.

Hawkins muttered, "We'll see about that.  Stomach full of charred bread
isn't my idea of a good start to the day!  What's gone wrong with 'em
all in that kitchen?"

"What has gone wrong?"  Meredith asked as they left the room.

"Double, double, toil and trouble!  Fire burn and cauldron bubble!

That is to say, the grill has gone berserk and the toaster jammed.

According to Mavis, Mrs Troughton has put a hex on them all."

"I can believe that!  I've just met her in the lane.  She was talking
to Martin, trying for information, I bet.  She dreamed about me last
night and she's going to interpret it and let me know what it means.

I'm not sure I really want to know!  " They had entered the lounge and
found they had it to themselves.

Someone had lit a log fire in the open hearth and it smouldered
fitfully, emitting small bursts of smoke and the occasional sharp
crack.  Meredith threw herself down on one of the sofas.

"I've been getting wild ideas about Miriam.  It might just be her
craziness communicating itself to me.  But she could be behind this
whole thing.  Try and have a talk to her when she gets back, see what
you think of her."

He took a seat beside her.

"She's not the woman you saw prowling round the gardens that evening?

Or in the churchyard?  You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure.  I wish I could say she was.  Remembering that figure
watching, so silent, it worries me.  But to return to Miriam.  I'm now
wondering if she could be someone from Alex's past.  She could have
been blackmailing him.  But she wouldn't have killed him, if so, that's
the thing."

"Unless he'd refused to pay up any longer?"  Markby suggested.

"How do we prove that?  I don't know.  I could be wrong and I probably
am.

It's just that I get the feeling Miriam is a very dangerous woman.  I
don't think there's anything she wouldn't do if it benefited her."  She
shook her head.

"My imagination!  Come on, where are those pies?"

Markby shook the photographs out on to a coffee table and they bent
over them.

"Nice one of the African violet display."  Meredith picked them over
carefully.

"Awful one of me by the bandstand holding an ice-cream!

What did you take that for?  " "Thought it was rather good.  Look,
here's the one of you and Rachel."

They stared at it.

"Doesn't show anything interesting," said Meredith, disappointed.

"Can hardly expect it to, I suppose."

They shuffled through them all again.  Suddenly Meredith grabbed a shot
out of the pile.

"Hang on, there's something here!"

Markby leaned over and squinted at the picture in her hand.

"That's one of my failures.  I wanted to take the roses, you remember,
but that ruddy woman walked straight in front of me as I snapped
them."

Meredith shook it excitedly under his nose.

"That's her!  That's the woman I saw at the funeral and in the
grounds.

The one I tried to follow down the lane, you remember!"

He took the photo from her.

"Are you sure?  She's got a hat on.  I can hardly see her face."

"I know and her dress is different, but I'm sure that's her!"

"Sure enough to swear it to Hawkins?"  Markby raised an eyebrow.

"Sure enough."  Meredith snatched the photo back.

"Yes, that's her!  I did see her twice at the show1 mean, I got two
looks at her.  Once when I nearly pushed her over and again as she
passed us.  She held up her oh, my God!"

She fell silent and stared at him, open mouthed "What's up?"  he asked
sharply.

Meredith whispered.

"I know1 know who it is!  It's that gesture.  I knew it was
familiar!"

"Do you mind explaining yourself?"  She had turned quite pale and her
agitation was beginning to communicate itself to him.

"As she passed us the second time she put up her hand, holding her
programme, to shield her face.  I thought at the time she was afraid
I'd barge into her again, only now I know it was because she didn't
want me to get a close look at her or rather, it wasn't me she was
worried about.  It was Alex she didn't want poor Alex to get a good
look at her!  He'd have seen through the disguise, you see.  He'd have
recognised her, I mean, not her..."

"Meredith!"  he pleaded.

"Can you just get to the point?"

"I am!  The point is, that's not a woman!"  She tapped the figure in
the photo.

"And Alex would have seen it!  That's Martin, the gardener!"

There was a silence.  The fire crackled again and a shower of sparks
flew up the chimney.  Markby picked up the photo and stared at it
closely.

"Are you certain?  Martin in drag?"

"Why not?  Ever since I first saw that " woman" in the grounds of
Malefis, I've felt I should know her.  When I went back to Malefis
yesterday, the canaries had escaped and were flying round the
conservatory.  Martin came running in from the garden to help and, as
he opened the door, the birds flew towards him.  He put up his hand to
shield his face and I knew straight away that there was something I
ought to recognise.  It was the gesture!  The way he did it!  It was
exactly the same as when he she held up the programme!"

Markby sat with the photograph in his hands, looking thoughtfully
towards the hearth.  A flame flickered up from the smouldering logs as
the fire at last took hold.

"It's going to be difficult to prove," he said quietly.

"I'll get proof!"  Meredith retorted vehemently.

"How?  Don't do anything!  I'll give these pictures to Hawkins and see
what he says.  He'll want to talk to you."  Markby hesitated.

"Don't say anything to Rachel."

"Of course not!"  There was an awkward moment.  He still avoided her
gaze.

"And stay away from Martin!"  he said abruptly.

Hawkins received their news with marked scepticism, but did not reject
the idea.

"I thought he was going to laugh us out of court!"  Meredith muttered
afterwards.

"Why?"  Markby returned.

"He's a professional.  He isn't going to leap at the idea, but he isn't
going to dismiss it unchecked."

The London man had taken charge of the photographs and told them both
to say nothing.  He would let them know if anything came of it.  But
there was no saying when that might be, Meredith thought dejectedly as
she walked back to Malefis Abbey alone.  Hawkins wasn't one to impart
information out of courtesy.  He'd just made off with the photographs
and that was that.

The first they were likely to know if anything came of her
identification would be if he made an arrest.

She could still see Martin but he'd moved well up the lane towards the
summit of the hill, and was clipping away at the overhanging foliage
there.  Intent on his job, he didn't appear to notice she had
returned.

Meredith looked from the distant figure on a ladder to the gate post,
denuded of its pineapple, beneath which she stood.

Someone tried to kill me and I've got every right to try and find out
who it was!  she thought to herself.  I'm not waiting while Hawkins
takes his time!

Suppose whoever it is has another go?

Despite the evidence of the photograph, she still found herself hoping
it wouldn't prove to be Martin.  She liked the young gardener.

She looked again down the lane to where Martin perched on his ladder.

It was a curious and unpleasant feeling to think that he might have
tried to kill her.  It wasn't a doubt she could live with.  It had to
be settled, one way or the other, as a matter of urgency.

Chapter Twenty-one avoiding the house and keeping under cover of the
shrubbery, Meredith hurried through the gardens towards the capacious
garage and the flat above it.

Reaching it, she peered through the open doors and saw Alex's Mercedes
and Mrs Pascoe's Mini.  There was no sign of Rachel's car, so she must
still be at Dr Staunton's or have driven on into town.

Meredith turned the corner of the building and approached the wooden
stair at the side of the garage which led up to the gardener's flat.

She climbed it stealthily, looking and listening all the while in case
Martin should decide to down tools and come back.  The door at the top
of the stair was locked.  This was disappointing but not surprising.

She should have expected it.

Meredith retraced her steps and began to walk disconsolately towards
the house.  She didn't know how to pick locks.  What she needed was a
key.  But Martin would have that and she could hardly go and ask him
for it.

But wait a moment!  she thought.  That flat was an annexe to the house;
servants' quarters.  There had to be another key kept somewhere in the
house itself!

She went to the kitchen door and peeped in.  There was no sign of Mrs
Pascoe.

Meredith walked in and looked around her at the warm, tidy kitchen.  A
place for everything and everything in its place.  But where was the
place for the spare household keys?

A search around produced nothing.  It was possible, of course, that
Rachel kept them.  But she wouldn't carry them around with her, or at
least not the key to the flat.  Alex's desk!

Meredith hurried to the study.  The desk was unlocked and covered with
papers.  Rachel must have been at work here and just left it to be
resumed later.  Careful not to disarrange anything, Meredith peered
into the pigeonholes, separating envelopes and folded notes with the
tip of her finger.  Nothing.  She tried the drawers but only one was
unlocked and contained more paper.  She stooped and scanned the recess
beneath the pigeon-holes.  There they were!  A small bunch of keys hung
on a cup-hook screwed into the side of the desk.

She unhooked them with trembling fingers.  They were even labelled.

Front door, back door, garage, garage flat.  Unaware that Meredith was
doing the very opposite of his request, (although afterwards he
admitted he ought to have expected that), Markby walked into the hotel
vestibule.  His intention was to go over to Malefis and have a word
with Rachel.  But he was forestalled.

The door of the business office at the back of the reception area
clicked open, and the woman he'd earlier seen passing the window
stepped out into the tiled hall.

Mrs Troughton must have been back a little while from her walk because
there was no sign of outdoor clothing and any disarrangement by wind to
her hair-style had been restored.  She wore a smart woollen two-piece
of a warm sable colour, with an eye-catching yellow topaz and emerald
brooch pinned on one shoulder.

To him the stones looked real and the setting probably eighteen-carat
gold.

An expensive and well-crafted piece, if a bit flamboyant in design for
his taste.  He was ungallantly tempted to make much the same judgement
on the wearer.  Though heavily made-up and no longer in her first
youth, she had an excellent figure and was still a head-turner.  There
was something in the ravaged beauty of that face which compelled
admiration.

She had easily divined his thoughts and homed in on him as if led by
some radar of physical chemistry.

"Hullo," she greeted him throatily.

"You must be the other policeman!  My name is Miriam."

"The other one?"  He realised his plan to go over to Malefis had to be
shelved temporarily.

"Yes.  Rachel's friend.  Not this unpleasant man from London, this
Hawkins She pronounced the superintendent's name by stressing the
second, instead of the first syllable.  It made Markby smile and she
asked, "That's not his name?"

"Oh, yes.  That's his name," he assured her hastily.

She smiled, showing flawless teeth.

"Why don't you come and have a drink with me?"  She glanced in the
direction indicated by the painted wooden hand.

"I don't think the bar's open yet."

"I open it!"  She twitched her shoulders.

"For us.  I am co owner after all!"

They had the bar-lounge to themselves.  Miriam moved behind the bar and
poured out the beer he requested and a glass of still orange for
herself.  Then she came to back to the front of the bar and perched on
a stool beside him.  She lifted the glass of orange.

"I am on a regime, you know.  No alcohol these days!  But cheers!"

"Cheers!"  he returned, saluting her with his beer.

She sipped at her orange, leaving scarlet lipstick traces on the
glass.

"I don't like Hawkins He has an unlucky face!"

"Hope I don't," said Markby, smiling at her.

"Oh, no.  You have a good face.  A very good face.  But you have
suffered, I think.  I see it in your eyes.  Yes, you've suffered, my
handsome policeman!"

She reached out and touched his hand.

"I shall read a fortune for you in the cards.  I do it very well.  But
I haven't my cards here at the moment.  Tonight."

He felt rather as Meredith must have done.  Whatever Miriam saw in his
future, he'd rather not know it.  She was staring at him
meditatively.

"A problem?"  he asked.

"Only that Alex used to sit just there, on your stool.  It's so sad.

Tell me," she fixed him with a limpid gaze, 'why does Hawkins spend so
much time here looking for Alex's murderer?  Poor man, he was killed in
London."

"You'll have to ask Superintendent Hawkins that.  I'm afraid he doesn't
confide in me."

"He doesn't?"  She didn't trouble to hide her disappointment.  Then she
looked sceptical.

"But you're a policeman too, a colleague?  Surely you must talk
business together?  It's natural."

"It would be highly improper for him to discuss the case with me," said
Markby to her, although he suspected this argument would be the one
which weighed least in her mind.

"I'm a witness.

Also, I'm on holiday."  As expected, she dismissed his reasons.

"Improper?  Nonsense!  Of course you talk to him and he to you but you
don't want to talk to me."  She sighed.

"Someone else has died now," he pointed out.

"Here in Lynstone."

"That girl?  But that has nothing to do with Alex, surely?  It was a
burglar.

These big houses, they attract thieves.  Poor child, she disturbed
him."

As a theory, it wasn't a bad one.

"Tell me, did you know Alex and Rachel before they came to live
here?"

he asked her.

"No, not at all!"  she said firmly.

"You and Alex, both having come here from other parts of the world, you
must have had a lot in common?"

She didn't like being questioned in her turn, and slipped from the
bar-stool.

"I must go.  I have so much to do.  We'll see each other again,
tonight.

Then I'll read your cards!"

She walked briskly away, though still managing a provocative sway of
the hips, leaving her orange juice unfinished on the bar.  Markby
sipped his beer and stared thoughtfully after her.

Meredith had hurried back to the flat.  The key turned easily in the
lock.

The door swung open.  With the briefest hesitation, Meredith stepped
inside and closed the door behind her.  She didn't know when Martin
might return, that was the biggest problem.  But it wasn't yet
lunchtime.  She could only hope he'd be conscientious enough not to
down tools early.  She glanced at her watch.  She'd allow herself
twenty minutes maximum and then leave, whether or not she'd found
anything.

The flat was spartanly furnished but comfortable enough.  The living
room did not offer anything of interest.  There was a small television
set.  But apart from a few gardening magazines and some out-of-date
French newspapers and periodicals, there was no reading matter.  There
were no family snapshots.

No souvenirs bought to take back to France from England.  The tiny
bedroom was the same.  Neat, almost monastic in its simplicity,
featureless.

Meredith frowned.  There was something wrong in this absence of a
personal touch.  Martin might have landed here from Mars.  There was
absolutely nothing to indicate his tastes or his background.

She went back to the living room.  There was an arch in one wall closed
off from the room by a curtain of blue plastic beads.  She moved it
aside to discover a kitchenette with a ne wish fridge and a more
elderly Baby Belling cooker.  There was a bowl of fruit on top of the
cupboard unit and the little recess held a lingering aroma of fresh
coffee, garlic and herbs.  It suggested Martin knew how to cook.

She let the curtain fall and went to investigate the only remaining
room, the bathroom.

In here, at last, was evidence to support her claim.  In the bathroom
cabinet, alongside the usual masculine toiletries, was a lipstick,
eyeliner, pancake face-powder and a bottle of scarlet nail varnish.

Meredith picked up a tiny plastic box.  False eyelashes, like a pair of
exotic caterpillars, lay side by side within it.

Meredith left it all and made her way back to the bedroom.  The
wardrobe was a fixture, built against one wall.  She slid back a door
and riffled among the clothing.  Yes, here was the navy-blue dress with
the Quaker collar, but not the dress Martin had worn for the fatal
visit to the Chelsea Show.  That, presumably, had been destroyed.  More
likely than not, it and the hat had been burned on his garden
bonfire.

There was a shelf above the clothing rack.  Meredith ran her hand along
it, encountering neat piles of underwear and pullovers.  Then her
fingers touched a plastic bag.  The contents felt rather unpleasant:
soft and squishy.  She lifted it down and gingerly opened it.  It was
the wig of long brown hair.

At that moment the outer door to the flat clicked and voices were
heard.

Martin had returned and, with him, someone else.  Meredith had no
choice.

She squeezed into the wardrobe, pulled the sliding door shut, and
crouched down among the clothing.

At first she couldn't hear very well, which was both frustrating and
reassuring, because it meant they were staying in the sitting room.

There was a clatter as of crockery, and she thought she could smell
coffee.

Martin was taking his lunch-break and had brought company to share it
with him.  Meredith wished she knew who it was.

Then her heart leapt up into her mouth.  Someone had come into the
bedroom and stood just on the other side of the wardrobe door.  The
voice, Martin's, was horribly clear.

"I told you, I couldn't help it!"  He sounded angry rather than
defensive.

The other person had followed him into the bedroom and, in a voice
pitched high with nervousness and anguish, replied, "She wouldn't have
done anything!"

It was Nevil James.

"I told you, she had that stupid photograph!  You are a fool--'
Martin's voice held contempt 'to cut about the picture of your mother
like that!

Besides," his tone became censorious, 'it was not respectful!  " "Not
respectful?"  Nevil cried out shrilly.

"Why should I respect her?

My mother's a monster!  She's - she's like some octopus: every time I
escape from one arm, she clutches me with another!  " "Pah!  So just
leave!  But you cannot, eh?  You haven't the nerve.  Mais enftn, what
is this to me?  However, if you must play stupid games with the photos,
at least destroy them afterwards.  Don't leave them where someone else
can find them!"

"I did1 burned them!"

"No!  You only tried to burn them!  It was too damp, your pathetic
little fire.  Those brown envelopes don't burn so easily.  It
smouldered a little, but the pictures were quite undamaged!  She told
me so, your Gillian.  She rescued them from the fire and kept them.

She meant to show them to Rachel!

What's worse, she told me she had two of these photographs, and I only
took one from her so somewhere, Nevil, mon cher, there is another.  You
had better find it!"

To Meredith's dismay the sliding door of the wardrobe opened an inch.

The tips of Martin's fingers appeared, gripped around the edge.

"So what if she had shown Rachel?"  Nevil's voice had grown more
assured, truculent.

"It wouldn't have harmed you!  It was my business and I could have
taken care of it!"

There was a silence and movement on the other side of the door.

Martin had fortunately abandoned his intention of opening the wardrobe,
at least for the moment.

"You say you would take care of it.  But you are not a person who takes
care of things, Nevil.  You are a person who hides and thinks too much
about his problems and only deals with them by cutting holes in a
photograph.  You'd like to attack or kill your mother, that is it!  But
you don't dare.  You haven't the resolution to kill anyone.

Only on a picture can you commit a murder!  " Nevil uttered a muffled
sound of distress, which seemed to soften Martin's scorn.

"Listen, my Nevil," he went on coaxingly.

"You know so much about me.  So much of what I have done!  But you see,
I cannot rely on you.  You are too nervous and that affair of the cut
photographs ... I am not sure what is in your head, what you will do.

Especially if that woman, that Rachel, she began to accuse you of
anything!

I should not have confided in you.  It was a mistake.  I don't make
many mistakes, but that was one.  I regret it."

"You didn't confide in me!"  Nevil snapped.

"I guessed you killed him!

You and your habit of mincing round in women's clothes!  What sort of a
gardener, real gardener, does that?  I always knew you were here for
some purpose.  I don't know why or how but I knew straight away you
killed Alex and that you came here to do it!  " "So?"  Martin's voice
was soft now, but the menace in it made the listening Meredith almost
start out of the wardrobe in alarm.  Nevil should shut up.

He'd said enough.  She wanted to shout out to him either to hold his
tongue now or say something which would reassure Martin.

"Why didn't you tell the police, then, if you knew it?"  * Martin asked
almost politely, a mild curiosity in his | tone.  i'1 Nevil said
sullenly, "I was afraid Rachel was had something to do with it.  I
wouldn't say anything to get her into trouble with the police.  Anyway,
I didn't care if he was dead.  It suited me.  But not Gillian!  You
oughtn't to have killed poor Gillie!"  ^ There was a sigh.

"And I have explained to you, Nevil, 9i over and over again.  It was
necessary.  If it hadn't been necessary, I wouldn't have done it.  I am
sorry, really, but I had to act quickly!  You must realise that."

"I don't know..."  Nevil still sounded unhappy.

"Besides," Martin's voice was cool and touched with spite.

"You're wrong to blame me when, you know, it was only because she found
the photographs that she came to the house.  So who is really
responsible for her death, hern?  You or I?"

Nevil, his opposition broken, gave another whimper.  "I'm sorry about
the photos.  I didn't know..."

"Come!"  Martin suddenly sounded encouraging.

"We'll open a bottle of wine.  I have a good wine, a French one!  That
man Troughton, I got it from him.  You know, that little man really
knows about wine.  Nevil, you know I'm fond of you and I don't like to
see you so unhappy..."

To the listening Meredith, this last protestation of affection was
worse than the jibes.  She couldn't see the speakers, but she could
imagine Martin putting a hand on Nevil's shoulder, and Nevil, ever
unsure, grateful for the caress.

The footsteps retreated to the sitting room, and Meredith heaved a sigh
of relief.  She realised now that she was sweating profusely, partly
from the stuffiness of her prison and partly out of sheer fear.  She
tried to flex her arms and leg muscles to be ready to jump out and make
for the door if Martin came back and opened the wardrobe.

She thought they must be in the kitchenette now, presumably opening the
wine.

She heard a muffled clatter and a thump, as if something had fallen.

Footsteps, rapid ones, came back towards the bedroom and again
approached the wardrobe.  Meredith tensed herself, ready.

Suddenly she heard other voices.  Someone was outside the flat, on the
staircase.  There was thunderous knocking at the flat door and a man it
sounded like Hawkins shouted, "Open up in there!"

Through the wardrobe she heard Martin swear vigorously, first in French
and then in another, more guttural, language.  There was a rapid sound
of hurrying feet and scraping furniture, a squeak as of un oiled
metal.

Martin uttered a grunt of effort, then came silence.

The hammering at the outer door intensified.

"This is the police!"  yelled Hawkins.

Meredith ventured to open the wardrobe door a crack.  The bedroom was
empty and the window wide open, curtain fluttering in the breeze.

Martin had made his escape.  But where was Nevil?

She emerged cautiously from the wardrobe and went to the door which led
into the sitting room.  The room was empty.  The front door shuddered
as shoulders were put to it.  Hawkins and his companions would break it
down at any moment, and she supposed she ought to prevent them damaging
Rachel's property.

Meredith went to the door and unlocked it.  It flew open, catapulting
the unfortunate Sergeant Weston into the room.  He stumbled past her
and fell head first, sprawled on the floor at her feet.

"What the hell... ?"  Hawkins shouted.  He glared first at the
prostrate Weston, then at Meredith.

"What are you doing here?  Why didn't you open the door before?"

"I was in the wardrobe."  She let him work that one out.  "Martin's
climbed out of the bedroom window--' Hawkins swore loudly and turned to
the uniformed man behind him.

"Get out into the grounds!  Get 'em searching!

"Wait!"  Meredith seized his sleeve.

"Have you seen Nevil James?  He was in here with Martin, I heard them
talking.  He should have passed you on the staircase if he left!"

"Went out of the window too, probably!"  Hawkins glowered at her.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do."

"No, he didn't get out of the window, I'm sure of it.  If he didn't
pass you, then then he's still in here..."

There was a silence.  A feeling of physical sickness seized Meredith's
stomach, a premonition of disaster.  Weston had struggled to his feet
and was brushing himself down.  Hawkins looked around him at the empty
sitting room.

"Not in the bedroom, you say?"

"No.  There's - there's only the bathroom and the kitchenette, through
there..."  She pointed at the bead curtain.

"Take a look!"  Hawkins ordered Weston.

The sergeant edged towards the curtain and parted the strings of blue
beads.

"Gawd..."  he whispered.

At that, Hawkins and Meredith hurtled across the room together.

Nevil half sat and half lay on the kitchenette floor, propped against
the cupboard.  The handle of a knife protruded beneath his
breastbone.

His glasses had fallen off and he looked up at them, eyes open and with
an expression of surprise.

Meredith thought, quite inconsequentially, I was right.  Without his
glasses, he is good looking!

But it didn't matter any more, for Nevil was dead.

Chapter Twenty-two "I could have saved him," Meredith said aloud for
the umpteenth time.

"Don't keep on about it!"  Rachel returned irritably.

"I don't suppose you could have done for a moment.  He'd have killed
you both!"

Meredith tucked her feet under her on the comfortable sofa and tried to
turn her mind to something else, but it wasn't possible.  The rain
which had threatened for the past forty-eight hours had finally
arrived.  It fell in a fine drizzle, turning the atmosphere clammy and
sprinkling the windows with a muslin curtain of droplets so that she
couldn't see out.  The grey light was so poor indoors at eleven-thirty
in the morning that Rachel had just switched on a table- lamp in the
sitting room so that she could read her correspondence.

Meredith wished she could persuade herself that Rachel was right and
that nothing she could have done would have saved Nevil's life.  But
she couldn't help but feel that if she had heeded instinct and rushed
out of the wardrobe to warn Nevil of Martin's change of mood,
regardless of any risk to herself, the tragedy might have been
averted.

Martin, faced with the two of them, would have been just as likely to
have fled as attacked them both.

Meredith hadn't seen Molly James since the discovery of Nevil's body,
and she dreaded the moment when she would meet her again.  Molly's life
must have caved in.  First Gillian and now her son.  On a purely
practical level, how would she run the kennels now?  Hire other help,
Meredith supposed, if it could he had and if Molly could bear to live
among so many things to remind her of her loss.  Perhaps she'd just
sell up and go away from Lynstone.  But Molly wasn't a quitter.  She'd
struggle on somehow.

Rachel said peevishly, "It's worse for me, you know.  Now they tell me
I've been harbouring Alex's murderer!  Every day I've seen and talked
to that wretch.  I still can't quite believe it but Hawkins keeps on
and on at me!"  She shook the letter in her hand at Meredith.

"Do you know, he thinks I had something to do with Alex's death.  I'm
sure he does, I can tell by the way he looks at me and the very nasty
way he asks his questions.  I keep telling him, Alex was my life!  I
would never have done anything to harm him.  On the contrary, I'd have
done anything anything in the world to protect my poor darling!"

Her voice vibrated with a ferocity which Meredith thought could not,
surely, be faked.  Rachel meant it.  She wouldn't have harmed Alex.

But what had brought Martin to England on his deadly mission?

"It's just that Hawkins is trying to find a motive for Martin's
actions, Rachel.  He's got to keep asking questions.  You hired
Martin."

"Alex hired him.  He felt sorry for him, wanted to help.  Alex was like
that.

Impulsive and very good-natured.  That murderous little creep
insinuated his way in here.  It was nothing to do with me!"

"You're still the only person around who knew Martin at all well.  In
the absence of Martin himself, Hawkins can only ask you about him."

Meredith pursed her lips.

"He could have something to do with Alex's old life, in the Lebanon.

Do you know anything about that, Rachel?"

"No!"  Rachel said curtly.

"Not a thing.  Alex didn't talk about it.  I know why he left, which is
what I already told you: the fear of bombs and kidnap and so on.  If
you want to know any more, you'll just have to ask Martin when they
find him."

When, indeed?  The police hadn't found a trace of Martin so far.  The
usual watch on sea and airports had been set but, given Martin's gift
for disguise, he would be a difficult person to spot.

"Done up as a woman, you bet," Hawkins had said gloomily.

"Got a false passport to go with it, I shouldn't be surprised.  Miles
away!"

Meredith wondered why she couldn't share Hawkins's certainty.  She
glanced at the nearby window.  For a brief moment she wouldn't have
been surprised to see Martin peering through the rain-streaked pane at
them.  Her fancy conjured up that face which recalled an ancient wall
painting its smooth regularity and large, lustrous eyes, a saint's face
painted in error on a demon.  She blinked, erasing the image.

Rachel tossed her letter aside.

"I wish Alan would come back!  Where is he?"

"He's gone to visit the Hardys.  He feels he should.  They gave him the
other photo, after all."

At the mention of Nevil's secret, Rachel's fine eyebrows puckered and
she shivered.

"I never thought Nevil was, well, nuts!  I knew he was far too intense
about everything."

"Not nuts, just disturbed.  Poor Molly.  She must have learned it all
by now: the slashed pictures, everything.  It will destroy her.  As if
it's not enough that he's dead, murdered, now she knows how he hated
her.  She doted on him, anyone could see that."

"I don't pity her!"  Rachel said robustly.

"I'm quite prepared to believe she gave Nevil a foul time, never a
chance to lead his own life.  It must have been like living with the
Inquisition!  She always wanted to know where he was going, why, what
for, when he'd be back."

"That was because she was worried he was coming over here to Malefis,
Ray!"

Meredith pointed out, not without some asperity.

Rachel stared at her coolly.

"So what?  That was Nevil's decision, wasn't it?  He wasn't a kid, you
know.

He was twenty-seven.  He worked all hours at those wretched kennels,
and Molly hardly paid him anything out of the business by way of
salary.  He did all the bookkeeping, repairs, painting and
decorating.

He walked the dogs if Gillie or his mother hadn't time, cleaned out cat
cages and dog pens, ran errands into town.  He never went out anywhere
socially.  He hadn't any friends.  No girlfriends that I ever heard
about, and no men friends, either!"

"Wrong!  He had one," Meredith said sourly.

"He made a friend of Martin, worse luck!"

But not, perhaps, surprising.

"I have a friend," Martin had said shyly to Meredith that day in the
garden.

She'd thought he meant the girl at the Mini-Mart.  But he'd meant
Nevil.

Meredith wondered how Martin felt about having killed his friend.

Wherever he was now, was he, too, distraught?

There was a step outside and Alan Markby came in, his fair hair damp
and tousled.  He sat down where he could see them both and announced,
"I got soaked!  I had to go upstairs, dry off and change."

"Didn't you take your car?"  Rachel asked him.

"Yes, but I had to park it opposite the Hardys' cottage in the pub
car-park.

When I went back for it, the landlord came out of an outbuilding and
buttonholed me.  He'd seen me in his pub talking to Selway.  He
reckoned he could get information from the horse's mouth and, I
suspect, sell it on to the papers.  I stalled him until he finally got
fed up.  But he persisted for ages while I stood there in a sea of
mud.

He was kit ted out in oilskins and wellies: he didn't mind the pouring
rain!"

Rachel asked sharply, "Are there any press people hanging round
Malefis?"

"None that I saw as I came in.  They've been busy pestering easier
targets."

"Not the Hardys?"  Meredith asked him, alarmed.

"How are they managing?"

Alan looked grimmer.

"They're besieged inside their own home!  And yes, a couple of
journalists called about breakfast-time, offering to pay handsomely for
a " human interest" story.  Wally threw them out, despite being
wheelchair-bound!  It's sickening to think a paper could approach
financially distressed people at a time like this, and invite them to
sell the one thing they've got left of their daughter, their memory!

Neither of the Hardys is able to come to terms with her death.  At
least they've been reassured that it wasn't Gillian who slashed Molly's
photos."

"Well, it wasn't my fault Nevil behaved that way!"  Rachel headed off
any implied criticism by going on the attack.

"I didn't know about it any more than I knew Martin dressed up as a
woman!  I never saw him in female clothing.  Meredith says she did, but
I'm sure I didn't!  " "You might not have recognised him.  I didn't,"
Meredith pointed out.

"Not until I saw the Chelsea photo.  In fact, before I met Miriam
Troughton in the flesh, I supposed she must have been the one I'd
seen."

"Miriam?"  Rachel threw herself back in her chair with a toss of
honey-blonde hair.

"Now she is nuts!"

It wasn't what she wanted to do, but she had to do it.  Alan had made
time to call on the Hardys and she, Meredith, had to call on Molly.

It was still raining that afternoon as she walked over to the
kennels.

The place looked deserted and unbearably dreary.  All the animals were
out of sight under cover, despite a new-looking hand-printed notice
reading, beware dangerous dog (rottweiler).  Molly had her own way of
dealing with intrusive journalists.  Meredith rapped at the
country-style wooden back door.  The only response was a deep-throated
bellow of a bark from the kennel sheds taken up by a higher-pitched
yapping.

At her second attempt she got a response from inside.  There was a
rustle from the other side of the wood planks and a hoarse voice
yelled, "Get the hell off my property or I'll let the brute loose!"

"It's Meredith, Molly!"  Meredith shouted at the barred door.

There was no reply for a while, but a curtain twitched at a side window
and then, a few moments later, the door was noisily unchained and
opened a few inches.  Molly peered through.

"Oh, it is you, then," she said.

"I thought it was the wretched press come back.  Them or the coppers.

Can't be doing with them, either, and their same stupid questions, over
and over again!

Come in."

"Is there really a rottweiler on the loose?"  Meredith asked a little
apprehensively.

"No, it's out back in its kennel.  I got it in yesterday.  It's a
bloody daft dog and too slow off the mark to chase anyone properly, but
it looks the goods."

Molly's face was drawn, her wiry hair unbrushed, and she held a
cigarette.

There was about her a lingering odour of nicotine, dogs and gin.

"I offered to lend it to Wally Hardy.  The blighters have been
pestering him and Irene, too.  But Irene was scared of it.  Anyway, old
Wally in a rage is as effective as a rottweiler!"

As she talked, she led Meredith across the kitchen and into an untidy
room, in which stood a desk covered with papers and a rickety
three-piece suite, once upholstered in green velvet but now bald with
use.  A gas-fire burning in the grate made things look a little more
cheerful with its orange glow.

"I was ringing round," Molly threw herself in one of the chairs.

"Asking people if they could come and fetch their animals.  Most can't,
of course, because if they could have their pets at home just now, they
wouldn't have put them in here!  But I'm on my own and I can't really
manage.  Don't feel like it much, to tell you the truth."

To hear this doughty woman admit to not being able to manage was, in
Meredith's ears, one of the saddest of all confessions.

"I'm sorry, Molly," was all she could say.

"I'll walk the dogs for you, if that will help."

"Thanks.  Want a drink?"

Clearly the offer indicated alcohol but Meredith said, "I'll make us
some tea, if you like."

"Please yourself," Molly said.

A little later, returning with the tea, Meredith tried encouragement
with, "I'm sure the police will pick Martin up eventually, or the
French police will.  They've been notified."

Molly shook her head obstinately.

"A hunted fox goes to earth."  She raised reddened but sharp eyes to
Meredith's face.

"That's what he's done.  He's not running, he's hiding up, waiting for
the hue and cry to die down, waiting for the hounds to be called off.

I've been thinking about it."

"You might be right," Meredith said cautiously, 'but where, Molly?

He's a stranger, a foreigner.  He hasn't any friends."

"Anywhere!  In the woods, in some empty property.  There are plenty of
disused farm buildings around here, old barns, tumbledown labourers'
cottages.  I told Selway that.  He said they were checking.  But he
can't check 'em all.  He doesn't know where they all are, no one does!"
 Molly sipped at her tea.

"But if he's around, I'll find him."

Take it easy, Molly."  Molly glared at her over the rim of her mug.

"Why?  What have I got left except revenge?  My husband ran off years
ago.  I brought up Nevil on my own.  We always got on well.  We were
friends, besides being mother and son, until that woman--' She
spluttered into her tea and fell silent.

She meant Rachel, of course.  In truth, Rachel had merely been the
catalyst which caused Nevil's suppressed feelings to spill out in a
petty act of viciousness.  But Molly needed someone to blame, someone
other than herself.

Early the following morning, an ancient van clattered up to the front
door of Malefis Abbey.  It was driven by the secretary of the local
Cage Birds' Fanciers' association.

"Where are they, then?"  asked this worthy, decanting himself and a
stack of small boxes, perforated with air holes from his rust-spotted
vehicle.

"Ray!"  Meredith cried.

"You can't!  Alex's canaries?"

"I bloody well can!  Who's going to look after them?  I'm not!  They're
all going to good homes.  It's not as if they're headed for the last
round-up!

This way, Mr Eagleton."

"That's not really his name, EagletonT Meredith hissed as she followed
Rachel to the conservatory.

"I get a lot of jokes about that," said Mr Eagleton, who had sharp
hearing.

"Get used to it.  Ah, there you are, my little beauties!

Wonderful collection your late husband had here, Mrs Constantine."  He
was very efficient, and the canaries were driven off in their boxes
within half an hour.

Their departure left an emptiness in the house and an added desolation
which even Rachel couldn't ignore.

"We'll soon get used to it," she said firmly.

"They had to go, Meredith, sooner or later."

Meredith, sweeping out the empty aviary, a task Rachel felt she
couldn't do, jabbed her broom into the corners in pent-up resentment
and sneezed as tiny feathers floated up and assailed her nose.

That second night following Nevil's death, Meredith found it more
difficult to sleep than she had on the first night.  Perhaps it was the
awareness that the canaries had gone.  Gone but not without trace.  An
irritating rash had appeared on her hands which she was sure had
something to do with the time spent cleaning out the aviary.

She rubbed in Germolene and went to bed with the smell of the ointment
in her nostrils and the knowledge that she was leaving bright pink
smears all over the duvet cover.

Canaries, antiseptic ointment, itching palms and general distress
combined to leave her wide-awake, with jumbled thoughts chasing one
another round her brain.  Around four in the morning she got up and
went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.  She didn't want to
disturb Rachel or Mrs Pascoe, so she moved quietly and, instead of
switching on the main light, made do with the tiny light which
illuminated the hobs of the electric cooker.  In this half-light, not
dissimilar to candlelight in power, she sat at the kitchen table,
sipping her tea and staring at the window.

Between the gingham curtains, a very faint line on the horizon
indicated dawn.  As she watched, the shapes of trees became apparent
and, to the left, the square outline of the garage block.

And then she saw the light.  It was very faint, a moving pin-prick in
the darkness, and it came from the upper storey of the garage.

Someone was in the flat.

Meredith put down her mug and switched off the meagre hob-light.  In
the darkness of the kitchen, the outside world sprang into focus in the
dim dawn light.  It was a moment or two before she saw the moving light
again, but there was no doubt about it.

She went to the telephone in the hall and punched out the number of
Markby's cordless phone, hoping he had it by him at the hotel.

After a moment or two, she was rewarded with a sleepy voice.

Briefly she told him what she'd seen.  "You'd better go along the
corridor and wake Hawkins," she said.

"OK.  Stay put.  Don't go over there, right?  We'll be there as soon as
possible."

Meredith went back upstairs and hastily pulled on jeans and a
sweater.

By the time she'd got downstairs again, the moving beam at the garage
had vanished and dawn had broken truly, casting a grey light over a
misty garden.

She kept her eyes fixed on the garage but there was no sign of life.

"He's gone!"  she thought in despair.

"We've missed him!"

But had it been Martin?  If so, why had he come back?  Alan would be
here shortly with Hawkins, and there wouldn't be a thing to show
them.

Alan would believe her, but Hawkins would probably say she'd imagined
the light and his sour temper wouldn't be improved by having been
hauled out of bed at four in the morning to chase will-o'the-wisps!

Meredith was out of the back door and half-way across the damp lawn
towards the garage with the key of the flat pressed into her palm
before she realised what she was doing.  At the back of her mind a
voice told her she was going against Alan's expressed instructions but
she ignored it.  It didn't matter now, she thought, because whoever had
been in the garage flat had long gone.

An early-about blackbird began to squawk noisily at her as she climbed
the wooden stair and put the key in the lock.  It didn't turn.

She frowned, puzzled, and then with a start of surprise realised that
the door was already open.  She pushed at it gently and it swung open
to reveal the living room of the flat, bathed in pearl-grey light.

Martin was standing across the living room, facing her.  He held his
hands at the level of his shoulders and in one of them clasped a wad of
paper.  His face was frozen and, into his eyes, when they saw her,
leapt first panic and then entreaty.  His gaze moved away from her
towards something else and he gave the slightest nod of his head.

Meredith edged into the room.  Molly James stood with her back against
the wall and a shotgun levelled at Martin's midriff.

"Molly... ?"  Meredith whispered.

"Told you," said Molly, without taking her eyes from the immobile
Martin or allowing the twin barrels of the shotgun to waver.

"The blighter had gone to earth.  But I reckoned he'd be likely to come
back so I kept a watch on this place.  He left in too much of a hurry,
without a chance to take anything with him.  And it's a thing about a
dog, you know.

It returns to its vomit.  He killed my son here.  I knew he'd be
back."

Martin moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.  He addressed
Meredith.

"Mademoiselle?  The old woman is mad!  Get some help!"

"Help for you?"  Molly jeered.

"It wouldn't come in time!  I'm going to blast a hole right through you
and no one can stop me!"

"No!"  Martin made to move forward but then thought better of it.

"Please I didn't want to kill him!  He was my friend!"  His face
twisted tragically and his eyes filled with unshed tears.

"He was my friend..."  he repeated hoarsely.

"Friend?"  Molly's voice cracked.

"My boy, a friend of yours!  You deliberately took his life!  You
expect those tears will make us believe you're sorry!"

Martin ignored her to address himself to Meredith.

"You believe me, don't you, mademoiselle?"

"Yes, Martin," Meredith told him.

"I believe he was your friend and you were his.  But it shouldn't have
ended that way."

Martin's voice became earnest.

"But I couldn't trust him, you see.  He was so so nervous.  He was
sick, in his head!  Also he said something very unkind to me and it
made me angry, very angry for a few minutes.

He said he said I wasn't a proper gardener!  But I'm a very good
gardener."  Martin's eyes flashed.

"He had no right to say that!

You've seen these gardens?  Don't I keep them well?  You should have
seen them when I first came here.  A disaster!  All the work here,
did!

" "Yes, the gardens are beautiful."  Martin appreciated the praise.

He gave her a little nod and almost smiled.  Meredith edged closer to
Molly.

Molly wasn't so easily distracted.

"Keep away!  If you get too close, you'll get peppered in the blast!

Shotguns make a hell of a mess, and at this distance I'll blow away him
and anyone else within range!"

The warning was enough to make Meredith change her mind about tackling
Molly.

She stopped and glanced apologetically at Martin.

Although, she told herself, this was a murderer!  But somehow, it was
still so difficult to take it in, even though he'd confessed to Nevil's
murder not two minutes before!

Molly was clearly thinking on the same lines, because she went on, "And
why the hell are you being so nice to him?  He's a killer!  An
animal!"

Martin's eyes narrowed, and for the first time Meredith saw in them
something of the ruthlessness and cruelty which lay buried inside this
young man's being.

"I?  Unkind to your son?  And you?  How did you treat him?  A servant,
a worker in your stinking kennels!  He hated you!  He called you a
monster!  He didn't hate me!  No - it was your photograph he cut about,
revenge on you he wanted, because he was your prisoner!"

"Well?"  Molly said hoarsely, "Now you're mine!"

Meredith knew she had to force them to turn their ;|j attention back to
her, take control of this deadly exchange, i|, prolong it until Hawkins
and Alan arrived.  Only by doing J this could she hope to delay the
moment when Molly let ?  loose with the shotgun.  Trading insults and
accusations, as the two protagonists were doing, could only bring it to
a very sudden and tragic end.

Meredith almost shouted, "Why did you come back here, Martin?"

Martin gestured wearily with the hand holding the wad of paper.  The
futility of the gesture said it all.  The money which had paid for him
to take a life couldn't buy him a life, his own.

Molly answered for him.

"He'd got a stash hidden under a floorboard.

He didn't have time to take it with him, so back he came for it, just
like I said.  He was kneeling over it, just taking it out of its
hidey-hole when I walked in and found him, weren't you, sonny?  " "She
is crazy..."  Martin repeated, desperation in his voice.  He appeared
close to tears.

"Molly," Meredith urged.  Think carefully before you do anything
rash!

" "Think?"  Molly's voice was harsh.

"What else do you think I've been doing since my son died but think
about it?"

"Yes, about it about Nevil's death.  You've worked yourself up into
this desire for a personal revenge.  But you'll pay a price, too, if
you shoot him.  Prison..."

Molly gave a cackle of laughter.

"Prison?  Think I'm worried about that?  Worried about anything which
can happen to me?  My life's finished!  I've got no future!  Nothing to
care about no one to care for She broke off.  The shotgun barrels
tilted.

"But neither have you, my lad, got any future.  I'm going to make sure
of that!"

"Stop her," Martin screamed.

"Mademoiselle, stop her and I'll tell you everything!  I'll even tell
you where he is!"

There was a clatter of feet on the wooden stair outside.  Molly, at
last distracted briefly, turned her head.  The gun barrel jerked.

Meredith darted forward and knocked it upwards.  There was a deafening
explosion and a hole appeared in the ceiling.  Martin had thrown
himself full length on the floor and, in doing so, released his grip on
the wad of banknotes which broke apart and scattered across the
carpet.

Meredith seized Molly's wrist and was wrestling with her as Hawkins and
Markby burst in.  Markby moved quickly towards them and detached
Molly's grip from the shotgun.

"OK, Molly," he said soothingly, adding to Meredith, "You all right?"

"I'm fine!"  Meredith panted.  She pointed a trembling finger to where
Hawkins held a sullen but relieved Martin in a firm grip.

"Ask him!"  she gasped.

"Ask him to repeat his last words to me!"

A little later on that morning, two vehicles bumped their way down a
narrow, tree-shaded lane.  The leading car stopped and the following
van drew up behind it.  Two uniformed men and two armed police marksmen
got out and joined Hawkins, Weston, Selway and a uniformed police
driver who had all scrambled from the car.  They gathered under the
trees.

"We don't know he's armed, sir," Selway said to Hawkins.  He glanced
disapprovingly at the armed response unit men.

"That's not the way we do things here."

"It's the way I'm doing it," Hawkins returned disagreeably.

"We've already had to disarm the old girl.  It seems to me there are
too many guns lying around down here in the countryside!"  He nodded in
the direction taken by the lane.

"He's holed up in there with a lot to lose.  I'm taking no risks."

He turned to the armed men.

"Get down there and cover the front and back exits."  The marksmen
melted into the trees.  Hawkins turned to Weston.

"All right, son.  Get yourself kit ted out."

A few minutes later, Selway stood and watched mistrustfully as Hawkins
and Weston, both in protective bulletproof jackets, set off down the
track.

Hawkins carried a loud hailer In the cumbersome body armour, both men
moved awkwardly.  Weston looked particularly ill-at- ease, holding his
arms away from his body in a manner reminiscent of a Wild West
gunslinger.

Selway snorted and muttered, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!"

The uniformed man beside him overheard and grinned.

The track ran steeply downhill until they emerged into a natural basin
surrounded by tree thickets.  Here a small stream was crossed by means
of a rickety wooden bridge.  On the further side was a ramshackle
cottage.  Originally a pair, the right-hand half had disintegrated into
ruins and the left-hand dwelling appeared about to follow it.  It
wasn't, however, abandoned.  Smoke curled out of its lopsided
chimney.

"Cooking his breakfast," said Hawkins with an unpleasant smirk.

"Doesn't yet realise he's got company."

They halted behind the cover of some bushes.  The superintendent put
the loud hailer to his mouth and bellowed out, his voice echoing
tinnily round the hollow: "This is the police!  There are armed men
covering the building.

Come out of the house with your hands up!"

Birds flew up from the thicket in alarm.  There was a silence as
Hawkins's voice faded away, and a movement behind a dusty windowpane.

Weston urged, "You'd better take cover, sir!"

But at that moment the cottage door opened and a man appeared.  He
stood there, his hands held palms outwards at shoulder-height, and
blinked into the pale morning sunlight.  He was casually but smartly
dressed in corduroys and a hand-knitted Aran sweater.  His iron-grey
hair was brushed back and the expression in his heavy-lidded eyes was
puzzled as well as wary.

"Move forward, right away from the house!"

The man in the doorway took a few hesitant steps towards them and
stopped again, squinting into the early sunlight, trying to locate the
source of the orders.  There was a clatter and the armed officers moved
into view.  Alarm crossed the man's face.

"I have no gun!  I'm not armed!  Tell them!  Tell them!  Please, don't
shoot!"

"Right," Hawkins muttered.

"Come on, lad."  He moved out from cover, Weston behind him.  At the
same moment, Selway appeared, pounding across the wooden bridge
followed by a uniformed man.  The little walkway vibrated beneath their
feet and its planks rattled.

The man with his hands at his shoulders watched them all approach,
intermittently casting anxious glances towards the armed officers.

"Alexis George Constantine?"  Hawkins asked with stiff courtesy.

The man's face twitched.  A measure of affronted dignity crossed it.

"Why did you bring armed men?  I've no weapon here.  I'm not a
killer!"

Hawkins bestowed his unlovely grimace of a smile on j | ^ him.

"A right dance you've led us all, Mr Constantine!  But now your little
game's over!  I'm arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

" He leaned forward and added, "We'll let the courts decide just what
you are, eh?"

Chapter Twenty-three alan mark by pushed open the door to the
conservatory.

The familiar flutter of tiny wings was missing now, but the cloying
scent of the orange blossom remained.  It was overwhelming, as powerful
as a narcotic.

Rachel sat in one of the expensive bamboo chairs, her hands gripping
the arms.  Her honey-coloured hair was brushed back and coiled into a
knot at the nape of her neck.  She wore a dark green silk shirt and
pleated skirt, no jewellery and very little make-up.  He thought that
her flawless skin and fine bone structure needed none.  If anything,
they were enhanced by the absence of paint and powder.  He had probably
never seen her looking more beautiful.

She looked up and he saw that dark smudges underlined her eyes.

"Have you found him?"  she asked bluntly.

"Do you mean Martin or your husband?"

Her features twitched in pain.  He was immediately sorry for the
puerile taunting and told her, "Alex is in custody."

She gave a long sigh and seemed to relax, sinking back into the
cushions.

"It's over, then."

"Yes, it's over."  Markby sat in the opposite chair, the bamboo
creaking beneath his weight.

"We should have worked it out at once, Hawkins and I. The autopsy
report showed no sign of the heart attack we were told Alex had last
year.  We assumed that Staunton and the specialist had both diagnosed
it wrongly.  But, of course, two quite independent medical opinions
were more likely to be right than wrong.  We were approaching the
problem from the wrong direction.  Their diagnosis had been right but
we had the wrong body.  It sounds simple now, but it was too obvious
and, after all, hadn't his own wife identified him?  " He gave a snort
of disgust.

"To say nothing of Meredith and myself who referred to him as Alex
because we believed he was Alex!"

"We forgot about the evidence of heart trouble," Rachel said
thoughtfully.

"We should have remembered.  But it wouldn't have mattered if
everything else had gone according to plan, because you didn't doubt it
was Alex, did you?"

Her voice hardened.

"It was that wretched girl of Molly's, meddling!  You'd never have got
to Alex if it hadn't been for her!"

"She wasn't interested in Alex, only in Nevil.  You should have left
that boy well alone.  Rachel.  You were playing with fire."

"Fire?  Nevil?  He was the wettest young man..."  Rachel's protesting
voice died.

"Oh, what does it matter now?"

He burst out, "For God's sake, it can't cease to matter!  Why on earth
did you do it, Rachel?  Was it Constantine's idea?"

The question was one asked countless times before by people who saw
those they thought they knew acting in a way they would have deemed
impossible.  He wanted desperately to hear her say that it had been
Alex's plan from start to finish, even though that wouldn't mitigate
her role in it.

But she said, "No, we thought it up together.  In fact, it was more my
idea than his.  As to why?"  She gave him a puzzled look.

"Isn't it obvious?  But, of course, you don't know.  We were going to
lose it all, Alan!  Everything Alex had worked so hard to create over
the years: the business, this house, every last red cent!"  She waved a
hand to indicate her surroundings.

"Oh, the house didn't matter, one can always buy another house, but the
business, that was something else.  Alex is fifty-one.  Last year he
had a mild heart attack.  He's too old to start over again with
absolutely nothing, to take on so much work.  To be frank, so am I. Of
course, I'm much younger than he is, but I know I'm not a slip of a
girl.  I did my share of scrimping and saving when I was married to
you, Alan.  I didn't like it then and I didn't intend to go through it
again at this stageofmylife."

"Rachel, tell me, just whom did we bury in Lynstone churchyard?"

She bit her lip but her green eyes were defiant.

"I suppose you have to know.  It was Raoul Wahid, a relative of Alex He
was blackmailing us."

Markby closed his eyes briefly.

"He tried to tell me his name as he was dying.  I was so sure he was
Alex I thought he meant there was something about his present name of
Constantine he wanted me to check out.  When I learned Alex had
formerly been Georges Wahid, that seemed to confirm it.  But what that
poor devil was trying to say was, he wasn't Alex!  I should have Good
God, we looked at all the evidence the wrong way round!"  There was a
silence, then he said wearily, "Tell me.  Tell me all of it.  I'll hear
it in court, no doubt, but I want to hear it from you here now " "Don't
criticise me!"  she retorted fiercely.

"Don't take that holier-than-thou tone.  You can't blame us!  Alex has
lived with danger all his life.  He wanted to be able to live in
peace!"

"He was hiding in Lynstone all those years, I take it?  Someone was
after him?  He did have a skeleton in some cupboard and this Raoul
threatened to bring it out into the light of day?"

"He liked it here!  But in a way he was hiding from the past.  Call it
a skeleton if you want, but you've got to understand the
circumstances.

Alex isn't a crook.  He just (i wanted to stay alive.

That's all he's ever wanted, to stay alive, safe, and live a decent,
comfortable life.  Everyone has the right to want those things and to
try and get them if he can."  She broke off and crossed her arms over
her chest, rubbing her forearms as if chilled.

"Alex was proud of being Lebanese.  He always described it to me as a
beautiful country and, before the trouble started, sophisticated and
wealthy.

Perhaps, one day, it will be again.  The Lebanese were the finance men
of the Middle-East, its bankers, but all the chaos and bloodshed put an
end to that.  It is no place for anyone who wants to sit on the fence
and not take sides!

You're born into a clan, a faction, you see.  The family, the extended
family, means so much more there than here.  It's a source of mutual
support and survival, but sometimes it just asks too much of one
person.  More than anyone should be expected to give.

"Alex's family was prosperous.  But during the seventies they became
worried.  Lebanon was no longer the place where people put their
money.

On the contrary, people were trying to get their money out.  The Wahids
decided to smuggle their reserves abroad, but very discreetly so as not
to damage their business-standing at home.  They needed a courier, a
go-between with the Swiss banks, someone innocent-looking, whose
frequent journeys wouldn't arouse suspicion.

Alex was young and a student.  Everyone knows that students roam about
the world for the fun of it.  He was ideal.  He carried their power of
attorney, the banks in Switzerland knew him and became accustomed to
dealing with him.

His signature controlled the movement of a fortune.

If you think the family was putting a lot of confidence in a young man,
then remember that Alex was clever, multi-lingual and, above all, an
honest man.

They trusted him because of that.  Also, he was a member of their clan,
the strongest link of all!  His interests were bound up with theirs.

The older members of the family made decisions in Beirut and gave
instructions to the younger man.  In true family tradition, Alex
carried them out.  Absolutely scrupulously!  He did everything they
told him to do and he didn't cream off one penny for himself.  "
Rachel's face and voice grew cold.

"But then, one day, during a period of particularly bad street
violence, Alex's father, brother and two cousins were blown to kingdom
come in the blast from one car-bomb."

Her green eyes held pain.

"Can you imagine the effect of that?  Alex was devastated.  It changed
his viewpoint completely, and you can't blame him!  He saw that really
it was every man for himself if he wanted to survive.  Alex did want to
survive, and he wanted a life free from bombs and bullets!  He wanted,
in short, to get out completely."

"I can guess.  He cut loose from family obligations and ran off with
the funds," Markby said sourly.

"Don't make it sound like a petty embezzlement!"  she flared at him.

"He was desperate!  He had to be so careful, to move money out of the
Swiss accounts and into another account in his name a little at a time,
without arousing suspicions.  It could have gone wrong at any moment
and he'd have been finished.  But he pulled it off and, when the time
was right, he slipped out of Lebanon and went to Cyprus.  He started a
small business.  He had to change his name, of course."

"Weren't the people he'd deceived rather annoyed?"

"Furious, what do you think?  It wasn't just the money, although that
mattered too.  His sisters were left without the dowries they'd
expected, that kind of thing.  The remaining men of the family saw him
as dishonoured.

He'd betrayed a sacred duty.  They swore revenge, which really meant a
death sentence.  But, you know, so many people in that part of the
world were on some death list or other, Alex accepted that as the price
for his escape."

She gave a brief, mirthless smile.

"For a couple of years things went well, but the situation in the
Lebanon got even worse.  It wasn't just money which was draining out
now, people themselves were getting out, anyone who could.  The first
stop for many of the refugees was Cyprus.  Alex saw that staying on the
island had become risky.  Any day, someone might arrive who'd recognise
him, and word would get back to Lebanon where he was to be found.  So
he moved to England.  The next bit you know.  We met and married.  We
were are blissfully happy!

The business did well.  It was all perfect, perfect!  " Her eyes
gleamed.

"Then, one day, he came out of a restaurant in Marseilles where he'd
gone on business, and walked straight into his cousin, Raoul.  It was
just a pity that this cousin wasn't killed all those years ago in the
car-bomb which took the others, because he was always a bad lot, the
family's black sheep.  They knew each other at once.  Naturally Alex
denied it when Raoul confronted him but Raoul just laughed.

"The years hadn't improved Raoul's character.  He'd had no aptitude for
business and had drifted around, working as an actor.  Nothing special,
bit roles and commercials, mainly in France and Italy.  Even those were
drying up as he grew older and his reputation for untrustworthiness got
around.  He'd been a dissolute youngster, now he was a cheap twister
vain and greedy.

Looking at the way Alex was dressed and the restaurant he'd just left,
Raoul judged Alex was doing well and could pay for Raoul not to tell
the family about Alex's new name, or that he'd seen him.

"Alex managed to shake him off.  He flew home, quite shattered.  He
knew it was only a matter of time before Raoul turned up and renewed
his " offer".

While he was telling me what had happened, Alex was taken ill.  It
proved a small heart attack: Raoul's evil already at work.  Alex was
now a sick man and in despair.  I urged him not to lose hope.  There
had to be a way out and, no matter how drastic it was, we'd take it.

Why should we live a miserable, hunted existence, always fearing Raoul
would find us again?  Alex literally couldn't have lived with that
stress and I couldn't live without Alex!  You must understand-' she
flung out her hands towards him 'we love one another!  " "Go on,"
Markby said expressionlessly.

She'd crouched forward in her chair as she spoke her last words and now
she straightened up and rubbed the nape of her neck.

"I'm so tense.  The stress of these last weeks has been awful.  Where
was I?

We knew Raoui'd certainly tell the family if we refused what he wanted,
if only out of spite.  There was only one way to quieten him.  He had
to die.

But how could we kill anyone?  We're not murderers!  We wouldn't know
how to go about it!

"We realised we needed a professional.  So Alex asked someone he knew
if she could suggest--' Rachel broke off and clapped her hand over her
mouth.

"Oh, blast!"  she said succinctly.

"All right," Markby told her.

"You didn't mean to say " she", but you did.  Are you talking about
Miriam Troughton, by any chance?"

"Oh, all right, yes!"  Rachel grimaced.

"That woman has the most amazing past!  She knows all sorts of odd
people."

"Meredith thought she was the one who might be connected with Alex from
back in his Lebanon days and blackmailing him.  It seems she was on the
right lines, but cast the wrong person as blackmailer!  This whole case
has been spent looking at the wrong person!"  Markby added bitterly.

"Miriam?"  Rachel looked surprised.

"Oh no!  Why ever did Meredith think that?  She's not Lebanese.  She's
Iranian - or is she Iraqi?  I can never remember which.  Anyhow, she
said she knew the very person for us.  She brought Martin over from
France to meet us.

He's an unusual young man, brought up in various countries around the
Mediterranean.

His father had been a pharmacist, first in Algeria and Morocco, later
in Provence.  He agreed to come and help us for a fee, of course!

Miriam said we were quite lucky because he wouldn't accept just any
job.

There had to be something about it which appealed to him.  Do you know
what it was in our case?  The garden here!  He could cover his presence
by acting as our gardener, and he really wanted to do that.

He was at horticultural college once but never finished the course.  I
know he likes to talk about his diploma, but in reality he never got
that far.

Miriam said he was reliable and there wouldn't be any nonsense like
blackmail in the future."

"You believed her?  On her recommendation you hired this professional
killer!"

Rachel looked briefly uncomfortable for the first time.  "It seemed
such a straightforward business deal.  Just like any other.  Alex paid
Miriam commission and everything!"

"Rachel!"  Markby couldn't prevent himself crying out.  "You planned
the cold-blooded murder of a man.  OK, he wasn't an angel, but he
didn't deserve to die either!  Was the deal he was proposing really so
different to the double- cross Alex pulled on the family all those
years ago, starting all this off?  Yet you talk as if you did something
clever!"

Rachel's eyes blazed.

"How dare you compare that cheap crook with Alex?  Raoul was nothing,
worthless, a nobody!"

"Everyone is somebody."  Markby's voice was harsh.

"Don't be sentimental, Alan," she said briefly.  She tossed back her
hair and went on obstinately.

"Besides, once we'd got really into it and Miriam had brought

Martin to us, we couldn't pull out.  We were committed.  We didn't know
exactly how Martin would do it, kill Raoul.  Nor did we know where
Raoul was, only that sooner or later he'd contact us.  Martin said he'd
wait till Raoul turned up, then decide which was the best way to
doit.

"As expected, we got a phone call from Raoul.  He was in London and
wanted to meet to " discuss arrangements".  Alex told him to come to
the office, after hours.  They'd have the place to themselves.  At
first we thought Martin could kill Raoul there.  But the offices on the
lower floors often worked late, and there's a security man on the
entrance.  He would check any visitor in and want to know why if he
didn't come out.  It certainly wouldn't have been easy to get a dead
body out.  So Alex said he'd just meet Raoul and see what he had to
say.  Anyway," Rachel threw out her hands, "Alex wasn't without
scruples.  There was a blood tie between them.  He wanted to give Raoul
one last chance to do the decent thing, promise to go away and leave us
alone!

"There was no way I would let Alex face that rat by himself.  I
insisted on going along.  So I was there when Raoul walked in."

Rachel's voice expressed wonder.

"He was untidy, badly dressed, hair too long.  He also had a moustache,
unlike Alex.  Otherwise he was so like Alex in height, build, age,
complexion, features, he could have been his twin brother!

"But if he was like Alex in appearance, I soon saw he was nothing like
him in character.  He still wanted to do a deal between Alex and
himself.  Either we'd agree, or he'd tell the family he'd found Alex
and let them take it from there."

Rachel's face was pale with rage.

"I could see the despair in poor Alex's face and I made up my mind,
there and then, that there was no way I'd let scum like Raoul ruin
us!

Then, all at once, I realised that, with a haircut like Alex's and one
of Alex's suits, Raoul would pass for Alex.  I remembered too that Alex
had told me that his family wouldn't give up the hunt for him until
they knew he was dead.

"I saw that there was a way to get rid of Raoul and make us safe from
the family for ever.  Raoul had to die, that went without saying.  But
supposing it could be made to look as though Alex had died?  There
would be a real body, notices in the press, a funeral.  All we had to
do was substitute Raoul for Alex!"

Rachel gave a tired smile.

"If we pulled it off, all Alex had to do was go abroad and lie low
there for a while.  I'd take over the business, and no one would be
surprised if I sold up the house and decided to move the business out
of the country.  I fancied Australia.

Later, Alex, with a new name and perhaps a little plastic surgery to
alter his nose and ears ears are such a give-away could join me and
we'd remarry.

We'd be together again and safe for ever.  Quite, quite safe!  If ever
the family got on his trail again, it would lead them to a tombstone.

Even they couldn't argue with that!  They'd have to accept death had
beaten them to their vengeance.  Oh, it was so simple, Alan.  But all
the very best ideas are simple, aren't they?  " "Simple and absolutely
wicked, Rachel.  Who suggested poison?"

"Martin did, when we went back to Lynstone and put the idea to him that
Raoul should die but people be made to think Alex had.  Martin said
that, with Alex's medical history, the death had to be from heart
failure.  Martin's father had run a sideline in herbal cures and,
partly because of that, and partly because of his own interest in
plants, Martin knew about plant-based poisons.  He went prowling round
the grounds of Malefis and came back to us looking really pleased!  He
led us out to show us a flower growing in Alex's wild garden.  Have you
seen that spot?

It's by a little pond in the far corner, quite a little sun trap The
one Martin had found had a tall spike of purplish-blue flowers.  "
"Aconitum napellus," Markby said grimly.

"Otherwise known as aconite, monk's hood or wolf's bane.  It was one of
the seven herbs the druids considered sacred and is the most poisonous
wild plant growing in the British Isles.  Fortunately, it's quite
rare."

"Yes, Martin said we were lucky."  Rachel indicated the conservatory.

"I told you, when we came here this was full of hideous plants which we
threw out.  But outside, growing in Alex's favourite spot, was one
which was so poisonous I'd have insisted it was rooted out and burned,
if I'd known.  It was just as though Fate meant to help us!

"Martin said it made a very reliable poison and was used a lot in the
ancient world.  It caused the heart to seize up.  That made it
particularly suitable for us."

"I follow that," Markby interrupted, 'but how did you persuade the
wretched Raoul to mount that charade at the Chelsea Flower Show,
passing himself off as Alex?  He must have wondered why it was
necessary."

"For goodness' sake, Alan!  With all your years in the force, you
should have learned by now that people believe any lie provided it's
the right lie!  You have to tailor it to what they want to believe!  I
told you, Raoul was a petty- minded crook, ambitious but fundamentally
stupid.  People like that don't understand finer feelings; they believe
everyone is as crooked as they are!  Alex fold him he still had money
stashed secretly in a Swiss account.  He offered Raoul a sum which made
his greedy eyes pop out!  Alex stressed the British government knew
nothing of this bank account, so Alex would have to go personally to
Geneva and be out of the country without anyone suspecting it.  He told
Raoul it was to do with tax evasion.

Raoul was prepared to believe that."  She gave a nod of her blonde
head.

"I suggested he double for Alex at the flower show.  I pointed out to
him how amazing the likeness was between them.  I batted my eyelashes a
bit at him, too.  He was terribly vain."

Markby winced but there was anger in his voice as he asked, "And you
never once hesitated, Rachel?"

Her pretty face hardened.  She looked older, sharper, and he realised
that his question had been answered.

"Why?  Chelsea was a perfect opportunity.  Alex and I didn't go out and
about much, but we never missed Chelsea.  We used to bump into the same
people every year.  There was a good chance we'd be photographed.

By the society press, I mean, not you, Alan!  Raoul lapped it all up.

He was an awful snob, you know, in addition to everything else.  He
really fancied swan king about pretending to be Alex, the great
success!  " Rachel leaned forward.

"Raoul was a failure, Alan!  All failures yearn for a share of the
limelight!"  She paused and gave a sudden, quite charming, smile.

"Besides, he'd heard about the Chelsea Flower Show.

He was keen to see it.  He thought it would be such a very English
occasion!

" "And he thought he'd be there in the company of a well- bred
Englishwoman whom he could trust absolutely!"  Markby almost snarled.

"That's right!  Persuade him to go?  I couldn't have stopped him!"  Her
manner became confidential.

"We hadn't intended him to drop dead in London!  We knew that would
mean a post mortem and we wanted to avoid that if we could.  We
thought, if Raoul could be taken ill at Chelsea, I could put him in the
car and bring him back to Malefis.  I'd call in Staunton once he was
dead, explaining that I hadn't called him in at once because we were
travelling back from London.  With luck, Staunton would write out a
death certificate.  After all, Raoul was virtually Alex's double and we
didn't socialise with the Stauntons.  You've met Penny.  Boring little
woman!  Staunton himself is an over-worked family doctor who doesn't
seem to have a private life.  He sees dozens of people in the course of
a week.  Faced with a dead body looking like Alex in Alex's bed, why
should he question it?  Martin would go to Raoul's London hotel, pay
cash, and clear his room.  He wouldn't be missed."

"But one thing was necessary.  Staunton had to have treated Alex more
recently than last year.  Otherwise he couldn't have signed a
certificate.

However, Alex had been feeling under the weather, what with all the
stress, so he was quite pleased to have a repeat prescription.  He
chose a busy morning to go to the surgery: it's a country practice
covering several villages.  The waiting room was full, the phone kept
ringing and Staunton scribbled out a prescription for more pills,
telling Alex to come back if they didn't do the trick and he'd refer
him back to the specialist."

"You both thought that you could make such a plan work, Rachel?  It was
never going to work!  You must both have been absolutely crazy!  If
Staunton had had the slightest doubt, he wouldn't have signed the
certificate.  You can't guarantee with poison at what point the victim
will die.  You certainly couldn't guarantee the police wouldn't be
called in.  It was madness!"

"We weren't crazy, we were desperate!"  She clenched her fists.

"Why shouldn't it have worked?  Only little lies fail!  Was Staunton
going to tell me I didn't recognise my own husband?"  She hunched her
shoulders.

"But as it turned out, we never had to put Staunton to the test because
Raoul keeled over in the street in Chelsea!  Apparently, aconitine does
that sometimes.  We were unlucky."

Markby got up and went to the wire of the empty aviary, seeing in his
mind's eye Gillian Hardy's slumped form in the corner of it.

"Finish it!"  he ordered.

"Don't despise me, Alan!"  Rachel said vehemently.

"We were frightened, can't you understand?  Alex couldn't have lived
with blackmail.  The strain would have killed him!"  She paused and
added wistfully, "You loved me once."

"I said, finish it!"

The pain and anger in his voice crackled across the conservatory.

Rachel jumped up and went over to the marble basin and began to fiddle
with the tap.

"On the day of the flower show, Alex and I drove with Martin to
London.

A friend had lent us her flat.  I told you we'd borrowed her parking
spot, but actually we had her keys, too.  Raoul met us there.

We got him up as Alex, even shaving off his moustache.  It it was
incredible, the likeness!  Then Martin drove Raoul and me to the
show.

Alex left the flat in other clothes and came down here and went into
hiding.  After Martin dropped Raoul and me at the show, he hurried back
to the flat and changed into women's clothes.  He does make a
fantastically convincing woman!  " Rachel pulled a wry grimace.

"In the meantime, Raoul and I wandered round the show.  I'd told Raoul
to take his cue from me, but he had been an actor and he really started
to enter into the part.  Then we bumped up against Meredith!  I didn't
know she was with you.  If I had, I'd have got Raoul and me out of
there before you appeared on the scene, believe me!  But I hadn't seen
Meredith in years and it struck me that she'd be the perfect person to
introduce Raoul to as Alex.

She'd swear afterwards she'd met Alex Constantine, you see, because
she'd never met the real one!

Only only then you appeared.  Raoul started adlibbing suggesting we all
go to the Champagne Tent.  It all started to get out of hand.  I just
had to keep going, Alan.  I knew Martin was nearby somewhere.  I
couldn't stop him.  I had to go through with it somehow!  " She
stopped, seeming to think he would express some kind of sympathy.

When none was forthcoming, she went on crossly, "Martin had prepared
the poison and a suitable syringe.  He wanted something that could be
dismantled and not be obvious.  He thought it possible the needle would
break off when used.  So he got a friend in North Africa to send that
thorn.  It came off some sort of desert plant.  If anyone saw it on the
floor of the Marquee, it would be just a bit of vegetable debris
amongst a lot of other, and no one would take any notice.

"The thorn did break off but it stuck in Raoul's coat and he pulled it
out!

I was so shocked.  He was actually going to hand it to you!  I managed
to make him drop it.  I didn't realise you'd picked it up."  Rachel
narrowed her eyes and surveyed him.

"You really are clever, Alan.  I'd forgotten what a very good policeman
you were!"

"But a pushover in other ways," Markby muttered.

She hadn't caught the last words and carried on, absorbed in her
tale.

"The poison acted far too quickly!  Martin said afterwards Raoul must
have been particularly susceptible to it.  We had intended to get him
back to Malefis, as I told you.  We didn't want a London autopsy.

But when Raoul began to collapse, you and Meredith insisted on coming
back to the car!  Martin had managed, just, to get back to the flat
ahead of us and change his clothes.  He saw us all coming from the
window.  He kept his head and, while we were all crowded round the car,
slipped out of the flat and hid round the corner."  Rachel threw out
her hands.

"Meredith insisted I go back to the show to find Martin!  Of course, I
knew Martin wasn't at the show.  I didn't know where he was.  But I had
to go along with it.  I started off down the road.  Just round the
corner, Martin dodged out of a doorway and grabbed me.

"I was terrified Raoul would tell you his real identity.  Martin said,
we just had to take a chance.  He was pretty sure Raoul couldn't be
making much sense if the poison was working so fast.  After a suitable
time, we came back together.  The ambulance had arrived and they were
loading Raoul into it.  He was dead."  With a return of wonder in her
voice she added, "We'd done it!"

"Yes, you'd done it," Markby said heavily.

"And Meredith and I, a prize pair of stooges, had just stood by and
watched!  I suppose that once you'd put this house on the market, your
"gardener" would be dismissed and go back to wherever he came from!  "
"Yes, that's right.  Of course we were worried about the autopsy.  But
Martin said the police would look for the killer in London.  If we just
sat tight and said nothing, there was no reason at all why the police
should suspect me or Martin or anyone in Lynstone.  Of course, Martin
daren't leave straight away because that might look suspicious.  I
thought once I'd announced I was selling up, it wouldn't be strange if
Martin left to look for another job.

We didn't think the police would come down to Lynstone, but once they
were here we just had to act naturally."

"And the attempt to brain Meredith with the pineapple?"

"I didn't order that!"  Rachel flared at him.

"I wouldn't hurt Meredith!  Martin got a bit excited, that's all, and
started acting on his own initiative."

"As he did when he killed first Gillian Hardy and then Nevil?  You
weren't clever, you and Alex.  You were very, very stupid!  To hire
someone introduced to you by a woman like Miriam Troughton!  To involve
in your affairs a young man who removes inconvenient people as easily
and efficiently as he would prune overgrown branches from your
shrubs!

And you really believed he could be reliable?  That you could control a
killer?  Someone with no scruples, no reasoned judgement, totally out
on his own wavelength?"

"Miriam promised he--' " Miriam again!  Didn't the pair of you realise
that, even if you did pull it off, you'd be paying Miriam for the rest
of your lives?  " Before Rachel could answer, there came the distant
slam of a car door and the sound of voices.

Rachel gave a resigned smile.

"Here's that wretched man, Hawkins, come to arrest me!  Try not to
think too badly of me, Alan.  I love Alex and he loves me.  We only
wanted to be together and safe for always.  Is that so very wrong?"

A devoted couple, thought Markby.  Everyone had said so and everyone
had been right.

As Hawkins appeared at the door, Rachel added in a voice which
expressed the first real regret, "Please tell Meredith how sorry I am
for all the bother she's had.  It was nice meeting her again after all
these years."

Chapter Twenty-four 'what do you mean, she's gone?  " Hawkins
demanded.

" Gone where?  " "Gone away from Lynstone," said Mr Troughton.

"My wife's left.  I don't know where she is.  I never know where she
goes.

She doesn't tell me, you see."  He gazed from one to the other of them
with a beatific expression on his round face.

They stood together in the lobby of Lynstone House Hotel, Hawkins,
Selway, Markby and the hotelier.  Markby was there partly because he
still had a room, and partly because even Hawkins now tacitly accepted
he was no longer that untouchable, the copper who had possibly 'got
mixed up in something'.

He was just another officer of commensurate rank with an interest in
the matter.

He glanced round him at the depressing circle of stuffed birds and
sporting prints.  Rows of dulled glass eyes stared back.  Every single
piece of art here represented death in some form, not only the mounted
trophies themselves, but the pictures of men shooting down ducks from
the reed-beds, game-birds from the sky and stags from the heather.

They pursued foxes and otters with rumbustious dedication.

Even an unpleasantly realistic scene of a bare-knuckle fist-fight
showed blood drawn in copious quantities.  But there was a stark truth
in all that bloodletting.  Life and death went together, intertwined.

You couldn't separate them out, have one without the other.  In our day
and age, he thought, it's become the fashion to pretend death isn't
just around the corner.  We disguise the unpalatable fact in a variety
of ingenious ways.  Unless, of course, one happens to be a police
officer and then, like those sporting gents risking their necks in the
old prints, one meets violent death as part of the daily round.

Selway fixed the little owner with a fierce look.

"Now then, sir, you've got to have some idea!  What about her friends
or relatives?"

"I don't know her friends," Troughton told him with the same
serenity.

"She never introduced me to any of them.  She hasn't got any
relatives."  He spread his hands in an apologetic gesture.

"I'm very sorry.  Perhaps there's something else I can do for you,
gentlemen?"

"Something else!"  Hawkins exploded.

"For crying out loud, man, we're not asking for some meal which isn't
on your menu!  We're looking for your wife in connection with a serious
crime!"

"I know.  But I can't help you with that," Troughton pointed out in
reasonable tones.

"Anything else I can do, of course I'll be more than happy..."

The three police officers withdrew by common accord to the rear of the
lobby for a brief conference.

"He's cool about it, isn't he?"  Hawkins muttered.

"I'd have thought he'd be a bit more upset if she's really left him.

He gives the impression either that he's crackers or that he's on
something.  He seems to be up in the clouds.  Not with us at all."

"I fancy she's been in the habit of leaving," Markby returned in a low
voice.

"She's a strange woman and given to coming and going as the mood takes
her.

When she's here, life gets a bit fraught, and it's a relief when she's
away.

Ask Mrs Tyrrell.  I suppose her husband thinks she's simply taken
French leave again and will come back."

"Oh no!"  Troughton called, his hearing evidently acute.

They turned a united gaze on him and he flushed and fidgeted about,
waving his small, pudgy hands.

"She's really gone for good.  You can see it for yourself.  Come
upstairs and I'll show you."

They trooped obediently after the owner up the wide Victorian staircase
with its fine wrought-iron balustrade.  Troughton led them along a
corridor and through a fire door marked

"Private'.  There was another door beyond that, one of the original
ones, but fitted with a Yale lock.  This one was labelled

"Private Flat'.  Troughton hunted in his pocket for his keys and opened
it.

He ushered them fussily into his own home apartments.

"I'm afraid it's a little dusty.  Mavis usually comes up and gives it a
clean through once a week, but what with one thing and another ...

Miriam doesn't didn't - do housework.  She didn't cook, either."  He
paused for thought.

"She didn't do anything!"  he concluded.

They looked around them, their faces registering mixed reactions.

Selway looked quizzical, Hawkins furious, Markby critical.  He noticed
that the flat was furnished very comfortably, in somewhat florid taste,
with heavy cream velvet drapes bound with gold silk cords and a
bare-knuckle fist-fight showed blood drawn in copious quantities.  But
there was a stark truth in all that bloodletting.  Life and death went
together, intertwined.  You couldn't separate them out, have one
without the other.  In our day and age, he thought, it's become the
fashion to pretend death isn't just around the corner.  We disguise the
unpalatable fact in a variety of ingenious ways.  Unless, of course,
one happens to be a police officer and then, like those sporting gents
risking their necks in the old prints, one meets violent death as part
of the daily round.

Selway fixed the little owner with a fierce look.

"Now then, sir, you've got to have some idea!  What about her friends
or relatives?"

"I don't know her friends," Troughton told him with the same
serenity.

"She never introduced me to any of them.  She hasn't got any
relatives."  He spread his hands in an apologetic gesture.

"I'm very sorry.  Perhaps there's something else I can do for you,
gentlemen?"

"Something else!"  Hawkins exploded.

"For crying out loud, man, we're not asking for some meal which isn't
on your menu!  We're looking for your wife in connection with a serious
crime!"

"I know.  But I can't help you with that," Troughton pointed out in
reasonable tones.

"Anything else I can do, of course I'll be more than happy..."

The three police officers withdrew by common accord to the rear of the
lobby for a brief conference.

"He's cool about it, isn't he?"  Hawkins muttered.

"I'd have thought he'd be a bit more upset if she's really left him.

He gives the impression either that he's crackers or that he's on
something.  He seems to be up in the clouds.  Not with us at all."

"I fancy she's been in the habit of leaving," Markby returned in a low
voice.

"She's a strange woman and given to coming and going as the mood takes
her.

When she's here, life gets a bit fraught, and it's a relief when she's
away.

Ask Mrs Tyrrell.  I suppose her husband thinks she's simply taken
French leave again and will come back."

"Oh no!"  Troughton called, his hearing evidently acute.

They turned a united gaze on him and he flushed and fidgeted about,
waving his small, pudgy hands.

"She's really gone for good.  You can see it for yourself.  Come
upstairs and I'll show you."

They trooped obediently after the owner up the wide Victorian staircase
with its fine wrought-iron balustrade.  Troughton led them along a
corridor and through a fire door marked

"Private'.  There was another door beyond that, one of the original
ones, but fitted with a Yale lock.  This one was labelled

"Private Flat'.  Troughton hunted in his pocket for his keys and opened
it.

He ushered them fussily into his own home apartments.

"I'm afraid it's a little dusty.  Mavis usually comes up and gives it a
clean through once a week, but what with one thing and another ...

Miriam doesn't didn't - do housework.  She didn't cook, either."  He
paused for thought.

"She didn't do anything!"  he concluded.

They looked around them, their faces registering mixed reactions.

Selway looked quizzical, Hawkins furious, Markby critical.  He noticed
that the flat was furnished very comfortably, in somewhat florid taste,
with heavy cream velvet drapes bound with gold silk cords and a

three-piece suite upholstered in scarlet damask with gold tassels.

Dotted about amongst all this glitz were some very nice antique
pieces.

Directly opposite him, on the wall, hung one of those
eighteenth-century prints of lowlife which for him represented the
height of hypocrisy, since they purported to be a dire warning of the
evils of the world, but were actually an expression of prurient
interest in vice.  This one was entitled

"L'Entremetteuse'.  It showed a plump, raddled female in an elaborately
trimmed mobcap and hooped gown.  She was pushing forward a frail
looking young girl for inspection by a roue in a wig, who was engaged
in taking snuff as he eyed the goods on offer.  Markby frowned.

Troughton had observed his close examination of the scene.

"Miriam hung that picture there," he explained.  "I've always thought
it rather crude.  Unlike the old furniture: that's craftsman's work, is
that!

When we took the hotel over, it still held a lot of the house's
original stuff.  We moved the best pieces upstairs here and had some of
them restored.

Miriam had a very good eye for antiques."

"You said," Selway reminded him, 'that you have reason to believe she's
gone for good.  Or that's how I understood it.  You brought us up here
to show us something in particular."  And not just this collection of
expensive bad taste, his manner seemed to add.  Selway was clearly a
battered-old-armchair, pipe-and-slippers man.

"Oh yes, come along!"  Troughton cried eagerly as he pattered ahead of
them into a further room.  It was a bedroom, a marital one.  Markby was
mildly surprised that the Troughtons had still shared one room.  But it
contained twin beds and the air was scented with a lingering musky
perfume.  Sandalwood, he thought, and saw that in one corner there was
a carved oriental chest of this material.  Beside it, against the wall,
stood a large wardrobe.  The doors swung open wide and the hanging
space within was empty except for a woman's bathrobe and a summer
dress.

"See?"  Troughton took up a sideways-on stance and gestured with both
hands, rather as a conjurer shows his audience that his magic cabinet
really is empty.

"She took her clothes, all of them.  She's never done that before.  And
look, over here..."  He scurried nimbly across the room and directed
their attention to a small wall-safe.  Again with a touch of the
magician's dexterity and showmanship, he twiddled the combination lock
and pulled open the door.  It too was empty, but for a small box which
lay on its side with open lid and a bulky manila envelope.

"Cleaned out!"  Troughton trilled.  Took all the money and her
jewelry.

And a pair of Worcester vases valued at over a thousand the pair from
the mantel shelf there!  She left some business papers."

"How much money?"  Hawkins asked sharply.

"About two thousand pounds."

"What?"  all three men exclaimed together.

Selway asked, "Rather a lot of money to keep on the premises, sir,
isn't it?"

"Oh yes.  Normally I'd have gone into town tomorrow and banked it.  I
keep the hotel receipts up here, you see; all the cash, that is.  I
think it's safer than leaving it in the office safe downstairs."  He
glanced at the window.

"Her car's gone too.  I don't think she's coming back, not this
time."

They all withdrew to the first room and sat down around a highly
polished rosewood dining table.  Early Victorian, thought Markby, and
wondered if Mrs Troughton had begrudged leaving behind the furniture
which she obviously hadn't been able to transport.  She seemed to have
taken everything else.

Troughton sat waiting for them to speak.  His hands were folded neatly
on the table before him, and he looked neither upset nor nervous.  In
fact, thought Markby, the man looked almost happy.

"Mr Troughton," said Selway, 'if you don't mind my saying so, aren't
you even a little distressed?  I mean, if your wife's really left?  And
especially as she's taken the hotel's cash receipts!  " Troughton was
shaking his head.

"It's no use pretending, Chief Inspector.  My wife and I were not well
matched.  You can ask anyone.

She never liked Lynstone and she really hated the hotel.  I."  He
looked suddenly shy.

"If I may confide in you, gentlemen?"

"Yes!"  they chorused immediately.

"Well, then, it's really a great relief to me to know she's gone.  I
don't care about the money.  I don't know where she is and I don't want
to find her.  Of course, I wouldn't impede your inquiries.  If I knew
anything at all, I'd tell you.  But I truly don't.

"In fact..."  His tone grew more confidential and he leaned forward.

Automatically they all leaned forward too.  Heads together, they
listened as Troughton whispered, "I've often thought that I could
understand why a man should want to murder his wife!  Although I've
never understood how anyone could have the courage to do it.  I could
never have murdered Miriam, any more than I could kill anyone else, but
I dare say some other man, in my situation, would have done!  She was a
very difficult woman."

"Cripes!"  said Hawkins faintly.

Outside the hotel entrance again, they all stood silent for a few
moments, thankfully breathing in the fresh air.  Even so, it seemed to
Markby that the odour of sandalwood lingered.  He remembered Miriam,
perched on a barstool, and that picture on the wall upstairs.  With
which of the two women in it had Miriam identified?  The depraved
procuress or the young girl about to be initiated into a life of
vice?

Hawkins burst out, "Can you believe it?  I've met some odd ones in my
time, but that one just about takes the biscuit!  Well, we'll have to
check the airlines and the ferries she's got the car, of course.

She might drive to the coast, take the ferry across the Channel, drive
to any point on the continent and fly somewhere from there.

She'll probably be in the Middle East within twenty-four hours!  " "If
she isn't in the garden somewhere!"  said Selway stolidly.

They looked around them at the hotel's rambling, overgrown grounds.

Selway fished in his pocket for his pipe and began to fill it.

Hawkins groaned.

"He wouldn't have had much time..."  Markby murmured.

"If he has killed her, which frankly wouldn't be easy.  She'd be
difficult for him to get the better of in a hand-to-hand struggle.  She
was a fairly strapping woman and fit, I should imagine.  Resolute, too,
and well able to defend herself.  There's not much of him.  Now, if
you'd suggested she killed him..."

"I'm not saying he has killed her," Selway murmured, putting a match to
the pipe-bowl and drawing on the tobacco.

"But we all know that, when an amateur kills, he often has a perverse
urge to tell someone about it.  Excitement, guilt, boastfulness ... He
didn't seem nervous, I grant you.  But he didn't seem quite normal,
either.

The superintendent noticed he seemed to be on a high of some sort.  He
could have got rid of the clothes, the car, even the money and the
antique china in a nice touch!  She could be anywhere in this garden or
up there, on Windmill Hill."  He indicated the rise of the land behind
him.

"Amongst all those trees."

"It's up to you if you want search for freshly turned earth!"  Hawkins
said briskly.

"I'm concentrating on the airports and ferries in the assumption she's
making a dash to leave the country!  If the car's abandoned at the air
terminal or anywhere else, it should be spotted.

It was a showy little number!  " "A car like that," pointed out Markby,
'wouldn't stay abandoned for long.  A thief or joyrider would drive it
away within a very short time.  On the other hand, if it were just a
question of hiding it, then there are numerous disused quarry workings
around here, and plenty of undergrowth."

"We could get a forensic team up to look over the flat," Selway
mused.

"But there's only the flimsiest of excuses and, if they didn't find
anything, we'd look foolish to say the least!  I saw no signs of a
struggle and the place was dusty he drew our attention to that.

Undisturbed dust is tricky to fake."  Hawkins said grimly, "Yes, he did
want to show us that flat, didn't he?  And the empty wardrobe and all
the rest of it!  And if it's dusty furniture he needs, all he has to do
is swop around pieces in that hotel!  There's got to be several dusty
chests of drawers and tables in unused corners!  " "This," said Markby
suddenly aloud, 'has absolutely nothing to do with me!

It's your case.  Meredith and I are going back to Bamford!  " Chapter
Twenty-five that was where they found themselves twenty-four hours
later, seated in his sister's office at her legal firm.

Laura took down a sherry decanter from a corner cupboard.

"This, I'll have you know, is my very best favoured-clients' sherry!"

She carried it across and filled the three waiting glasses.

"I don't know," Markby said, as he passed a glass to Meredith, 'what
we're supposed to be drinking to!  " "To your safe return!"  his sister
informed them both.  "Meredith nearly got brained and you both were
nearly dragged into goodness-knows-what imbroglio by Rachel!  Loath as
I am to do so, I have to say "I told you so!"

"You told me so: you were right," said her brother.

She beamed at him and raised her glass.

"Cheers!  No sign of that Troughton woman yet, I suppose?"

"None, as far as I know.  Even if they do find her, it will be
difficult to prove anything against her.  I gather Martin is saying
absolutely nothing."

He looked thoughtful.

"I haven't come across too many murderous gardeners.  Most of us only
kill off weeds and bugs!"

Meredith also looked reflective.

"In spite of it all, I liked Martin, you know, and I still can't quite
dislike him."

"You're not turning into one of those women who start pen friendships
with convicted murderers, are you?  " Markby asked sternly.

"Of course not!  But I would like to know more about his background."

"You might find out more than you bargained for!  Don't forget he
rigged up that pineapple!"

She heaved a sigh.

"All right, so Martin tried to brain me with that booby-trapped gate
ornament!  But perhaps he only meant to frighten me off back to Bamford
and, anyway, I can't see how they're going to make that particular
charge stick.

And you think that's what will happen with Miriam?  They won't be able
to make a charge stick against her, if they ever get her into court?"

"In the absence of an independent witness or some record of her
business dealings with the Constantines?  Not easy.  The police have
time to work on that, though, while they're looking for her."

"You don't really think," Meredith said with awe, 'that poor little Mr
Troughton--' "I don't know," he interrupted.

"And it's not my affair.  Nor yours.

That is entirely a matter for Hawkins and Selway."

"If you'd only taken that stand over Alex's murder," Laura pointed
out.

"Or the murder you thought was Alex's!"

"Yes."  Markby sipped at his sherry.

"I still can't believe Rachel could have done what she did.  If I
hadn't heard it from her own lips..."  He fell silent, staring into the
middledistance.

Laura and Meredith exchanged glances.

"So it was Alex, was it," Meredith asked suddenly, 'who sat up on
Windmill Hill in that sort of den we found, smoking and drinking beer
and watching his house to see who called?

He even watched his own funeral procession move out!  " Markby roused
himself from the abstraction into which he'd fallen.

"He was doing more than simply observe.  I fancy it was a rendezvous
fixed up between him and Miriam.  When you met her just after breakfast
that morning, if you recall, she was talking to Martin in the lane.

Afterwards she walked off up the lane towards the summit of the hill,
saying she was taking a constitutional.  I bet she was checking with
Martin for the latest news before going off to meet Alex and tell him
about it.  It was more than just getting a kick out of seeing the
mourners gather for his funeral which took Alex up there.  He was quite
isolated in that cottage, and desperate to know how things were
going.

He didn't dare telephone the house.  Rachel couldn't risk meeting him
anywhere.  For her to phone him from the house was also risky; anyone
might walk in.  I think I almost did."

Markby frowned, remembering Rachel standing in the hall at Malefis on
the day of his arrival, after Meredith's accident.  One slender hand
had been reaching out to the instrument, only to be snatched back as he
appeared.  Had alarm at realising Martin was exceeding original
instructions almost led her to break with caution and call Alex at the
cottage?  Advising him, perhaps, to get hold of Miriam, wherever she
was, and tell her to return at once and put Martin right?  He wondered
whether she had managed to put in such a call later from outside the
house.  Miriam had indeed returned to take charge.

"Miriam was their go-between at all stages of the affair," he said
grimly.

"She's an ingenious woman, and may have suggested the rendezvous.

She'd made herself quite indispensable to them.  I fancy, had they
succeeded, they'd have been paying her off for the rest of their
lives!

When she heard the game was up, I'm sure she put as much distance as
possible between herself and Lynstone without delay.  It's tempting to
think Troughton killed her, but for my money, it's not really on.

I'll put my money on her turning up again some day."  They all fell
silent at that, sipping sherry and mulling over their various
thoughts.

Meredith's thoughts were apparently of the vehement kind.  She suddenly
pushed a hand roughly through her bobbed brown hair and, with hazel
eyes gleaming, announced, "I feel a complete and utter idiot!"

"We've been through all that," said Markby absently.  "That's my
line!

Ask Hawkins.  "

"But I'm the one who saw her first!  What was my first impression?  It
was how theatrical it all looked!  How she seemed to be inviting people
to look at her and him, how studied every movement was!  And as for the
fake Constantine, he looked so happy, as if he was enjoying it all so
much.  The real Alex would probably have looked less impressed, more
casual about it all.  But the man I saw, Raoul, he was as happy as a
sand boy because he was having a wonderful day out on the arm of a
beautiful woman, all expenses paid.  Only it was his last day out, did
he but know it!"  She heaved a deep sigh.

"It was all so obviously stage- managed, the whole wretched thing set
up and the flower show providing a nice backdrop.  Such an innocent
sort of backdrop, too.  No one expects a crime like murder in a setting
like that!"

"Murder turns up anywhere," muttered Alan beside her.

Meredith swept on.

"Later on, when he collapsed, she couldn't hide how annoyed she was!

All that hand- wringing, even she wasn't actress enough to make it look
real!

He'd collapsed at the wrong moment, in front of us!  She'd wanted to
get rid of us first, because we might summon medical help.  She must
have been terrified he'd whisper out the truth and, poor man, he very
nearly did!  I knew it felt wrong, but I let myself be carried along.

In future I'll remember how important first impressions are, and how
dangerous it is to ignore them!"

Laura said soothingly, "You couldn't have known!  It all happened too
fast.  It's always easy to look back with hindsight and reconstruct
what we ought to have seen but didn't!  It constantly happens to me!

People walk through that door and spin me tales.  Later, when I check
it out and it all turns out to be half-truths and distortions, I tell
myself that I didn't like the look of the client from the beginning!

But the truth is, the client seemed quite normal and straightforward at
the beginning!  It was later, with experience, that my judgement
improved!  " "I suppose you're right," Meredith admitted.  She gave a
rueful grimace.

"Do you know what really bugs me?  I know it's only a trivial thing,
but it's the fuss Rachel made over the funeral flowers!  She knew it
was Raoul in that coffin, but she took endless trouble over flowers for
his funeral!"

"She knew it was Raoul.  We had to think it was Alex, remember!"

Markby said grimly.

"Well, I think it's time we talked about something else," Laura
declared briskly.

"All this breast-beating isn't helping any of us, and it certainly
can't help the dead man."

"All right," her brother said unexpectedly.

"I've got a bit of other news for you.  I'm not sure how you'll take
it.

You'll have heard about the restructuring of the police service which
is due to take place?  I suppose I'm fortunate in that I'm being given
the opportunity to stay on.  It it means moving up to superintendent as
soon as there's an available vacancy."

"Alan?"  Laura set down her cut-glass sherry glass with a clatter, a
mark of her surprise.

"It's actually come through, your promotion?

You've accepted it?  " "Hobson's choice!  It came through while I was
away."

"But this is wonderful!"  his sister exclaimed.

"You should have made superintendent years ago, Alan.  You know so!

We'll all go out to dinner tonight to celebrate.  I'll ring Paul at
home."

Meredith said quietly, "And will you be leaving Bamford?"

He met her troubled hazel eyes.

"I don't know.  Not immediately, at any rate.  We'll have to wait and
see."

"We can still celebrate," said Laura firmly.

"I'll get Moira Macdonald to come over and baby-sit."

"That's not Miss Macdonald from the chemist in the market square?"

Markby asked, startled.

"She always seems a perfect dragon to me.

She'll terrify the children with hellfire and brimstone!  " "Oh no, the
children are very fond of her!  She's teaching Emma to knit Fair-Isle
patterns."

"Wrong again!"  he thought, and wondered if he was any kind of judge of
character at all.

"Very well done, anyway!"  said Mr Foster.

"I was a bit worried about you for a while, especially when you phoned
in about the accident with the what was it stone acorn?"

"Stone pineapple.  It wasn't an accident."

He smiled uneasily.  The coffee was the same but today he'd produced a
plate of digestive biscuits.  His office was no tidier, and neither was
he.

"Still, no harm done, eh?"  Meeting a ferocious look from the other
side of the desk, he hurried on, "And very many thanks for your help.

It wasn't what we feared.  There are no international repercussions.

We really appreciate all you did, Meredith."

"Don't mention it!"  she told him.

"And I do mean that.  Please, don't ask me again!"

Mrs Lang, the owner of the corgi, had come to collect her pet.  She
waited impatiently in the kitchen with Molly James while the new girl
walked him over from the kennel.  Through the open door, Molly could
see the girl coming with the dog on his lead, trotting along nicely at
her heels.  These last few days the corgi had begun to realise that
walking could be fun.

Watching them approach, Molly reflected that, within a week, all the
good work would be undone.  As for the new kennel maid that girl
wouldn't last long.  She was no Gillian Hardy, prepared to buckle down
and do any job, no matter how mucky or physically exhausting.  She was
a pretty little seventeen-year-old school-leaver who'd answered Molly's
advertisement because 'she loved animals and wanted to work with
them'.

Loving animals wasn't enough, and work wasn't something the child
understood.  Molly had taken her on because no one else had applied.

No, she wouldn't last.  The signs were already there.  She'd turned up
late two mornings running, and had begun to sulk when asked to do
anything disagreeable.

"He's looking thinner," said Mrs Lang critically of her dog.

"We've trimmed him up a bit," replied Molly.

"He was overweight."

So was Mrs Lang; someone ought to trim her up a bit, she almost
added.

There was a popular saying that owners grew to resemble their dogs.

Mrs Lang was pale of face with ginger hair, a pointed nose and rather
short legs, Molly observed without any particular emotion or energy.

She didn't have much energy these days, didn't care much about
anything.

"Yes, he does look fit!"  admitted Mrs Lang.  She crossed to the door
as the girl and the dog arrived and stooped over her pet.

"Hullo, Bobsie darling!  Mummy's come to take you home!"

The corgi sniffed at her smart shoes, but showed no particular delight
at the reunion.

"Mummy's brought your doggy-chocs!"  cooed Mrs Lang.

At that the corgi looked more interested, and Molly said brusquely,
"I've made out your account!"

"Oh, yes!"  Mrs Lang returned, fumbling in her handbag.  She took out
her cheque book and opened it out flat on the table.

"Oh, by the way, I had a visit from a police officer a little while
ago.  He asked all about the day I brought Bobsie here.  He wanted to
know who took charge of him and what time I left and all sorts of
things.  I hope there hasn't been any trouble?"

"It's all settled now," said Molly in a flat voice.

"Oh, good!  Because there was such a nice young man here, so
reassuring!  I always worry about leaving Bobsie with strangers, but
the young man promised me he'd personally keep an eye on him.  I don't
see him around today.

Doesn't he work here any more?"

"No," Molly said.

"He's not here any more."

"What a shame.  He seemed so competent.  Young people don't seem to
stay in any one job for long these days, do they?"  Mrs Lang signed her
name with a flourish.

"They have such restless feet and always want to move on and do
something else!  It's only to be expected.  But I dare say you miss
him!"

She tore out the cheque and handed it over, not seeming to notice that
her last question had received no reply.