A Short Time to Live (Miss Pink Book 4) Read online

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Harper. I’ve brought your eggs from Zeke.’

  He glanced round the living room. The oak table was set for dinner with glass and silver, and two red candles stood in pewter sticks. Only one standard lamp was lit. Firelight flickered on cream walls and on a magnificent bread cupboard at least six feet long and stretching from floor to ceiling. The date on it was 1649 and it formed the partition between the room and the kitchen.

  ‘I can’t come,’ she called, still not showing herself. ‘I’m piping.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Come here, man, and stop shouting.’

  He removed his boots in the passage and crossed the carpet: a spare but unremarkable middle-aged man with restless eyes. Lucy Fell looked up from the kitchen table and smiled. She wore a flame-coloured velvet gown with a butcher’s apron protecting it and her tawny hair was looped in soft wings to a pleat at the back of her head.

  ‘You’re a lovely man,’ she said when she saw the eggs, ‘to come all this way on a bitter night for a poor widow woman.’

  ‘I’ve only come from Zeke’s cow-house. It was on my way actually.’

  Her mouth drooped. ‘You need a drink.’

  She had been piping cream round a flan. The big wooden table was cluttered with the equipment and discarded trimmings of a luxurious meal. The smells—of rich gravy, spices, some kind of roasting bird—were delicious. She put the flan in the refrigerator, washed her hands and went to the bread cupboard where the drinks were. He accepted a whisky.

  ‘How much would it be worth?’ he asked, looking at the cupboard.

  ‘You like it, don’t you? I saw you were interested when you came to my party. I don’t know what it would fetch. I’m not selling.’

  ‘Just a thought.’

  He noticed that she wasn’t drinking. There was a bottle of red wine on the table, and champagne glasses. His eyes were expressionless. Places were laid only for two people.

  ‘You must come and have a meal one night,’ she remarked, watching him. ‘Only a few friends, not a big party.’

  ‘Mm. I’ll do that.’ She waited. ‘I like this place,’ he went on heavily. ‘Tonight it’s very remote: us all on our own up here, just a handful of houses. Very grim, some people would think: bleak.’ He gestured towards the table. ‘I like this; it’s homely.’

  Her fine eyebrows had risen. ‘I don’t know why you ever left London if you feel like that.’

  He looked away. ‘It gets a bit too much sometimes.’

  ‘The rat race?’ she asked ironically.

  He nodded. ‘Everything: noise, hurry, fumes; you never know where you are. You don’t stay long in London yourself when you go there, do you?’

  ‘That’s different; my home’s here, but London’s so exciting! Sandale must seem incredibly dull to you. Besides, there’s your work. . . . But I forgot: you’re retired; you made tools of some kind. . .? What do you find to do over at Burblethwaite in these long evenings?’

  ‘Most nights I fall asleep in front of the television. Business had been difficult for me for some time and after all the worry of the past year I don’t feel up to much. I’m glad of the rest—which is why I came here, of course. I seem to spend more and more time in bed as I get older.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I’m nearly a pensioner, you know. What do you do in the evenings?’

  ‘There’s the Women’s Institute, the Red Cross, lectures in Carnthorpe and Carlisle; other people’s parties, planning the garden for next year, cooking for the freezer; it can take a whole evening to make one course if you’re interested in that kind of thing. There are books and television and listening to music. My life is quite full.’

  ‘We’re both self-sufficient then. I suppose people would have to be, in a place like this; they’ve always had to make their own amusements.’

  She smiled a trifle stiffly and the telephone started to ring. It stood on a table by a curtained window and she crossed the room with long strides, her skirt swaying and catching the firelight.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked pleasantly, not giving her number, looking past her visitor to the fire. Harper stared at his whisky intently.

  ‘No, he isn’t—’ Her tone was suddenly harsh and she turned her back, gripping the edge of the table so hard that the knuckles gleamed white. A voice shrilled at the other end of the line then stopped as if the speaker had choked. ‘I’ll give him your message,’ Lucy said with elaborate contempt. ‘He may call you back.’

  She put the receiver down carefully and shivered, but the room was warm. Taking a marquetry box from the cupboard, she came back to the fire and offered him a cigarette. In silence he lit hers, then his own. It tasted stale. Her hands were steady but she watched him through the smoke and her eyes held speculation.

  ‘Zeke tells me he’s missing some sheep,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘He thinks someone rustled them—is that the word?’

  ‘Surely you rustle cattle; you steal sheep. People used to be hanged for sheep stealing, I believe.’

  ‘Zeke said something about shooting the chap if he could catch him.’

  ‘The Rumneys are a law unto themselves. When Zeke says they’ve lived here for five hundred years you get the feeling he means it personally. He doesn’t distinguish between his ancestors and the present generations. Grannie Rumney’s the same; they’re all damned autocratic.’

  ‘Arabella’s an odd girl; I can’t get her measure at all.’

  She shot a glance at him. ‘She’s a real Rumney; Grannie says that’s why Dolly Banks—that’s Arabella’s mother—why her husbands keep running away: even Americans can’t take a Rumney bossing them about.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Dolly Banks has got an eye for the main chance though: rich husbands and enormous alimonies and no hard feelings. Grannie says Arabella will come into a fortune when she’s twenty-one.’

  ‘It’s nice to have money.’ He was wistful.

  ‘Another drink? No? Well, it’s nice to be able to offer guests a drink; imagine, if you could only afford beer and instant coffee! And fancy making shin beef and potatoes the focal point of a dinner.’ She glanced at her table complacently. ‘I don’t want to be rich like Dolly and Arabella but I’d find poverty rather tiresome. Subsistence level is good enough for me providing I’ve got the basic necessities.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t have to sell the bread cupboard yet.’

  Harper’s eyes rested on her rings and he blinked slowly. ‘I understand Arabella is going to start a pony trekking business in the dale.’

  She gave a snort of derision. ‘That’s Jackson Wren’s idea.’

  ‘Wren’s behind it, is he?’

  ‘Well, it’s obvious. Jackson, who is not one of the world’s workers, as you must have noticed, would like to start trekking but he hasn’t any money. Arabella is an expert on horses, has access to a lot of money, and is fascinated by Jackson. It seems a shaky foundation for business but I doubt if it will ever get off the ground because one of the Rumneys, Zeke or Grannie or even Dolly, will put their foot down as soon as Arabella tries to transfer money from the States. What’s your interest in the Rumneys anyway?’

  ‘In Arabella,’ he corrected. ‘She’s so—foreign—for Sandale, and then I’d seen her with Wren and wondered. . . . And then tonight she came for the milk while I was talking to Zeke, and she seemed such a well-educated girl. Wren’s not up to much, is he? Father a Council worker?’

  She was amused. ‘You’re a snob. At a guess I’d say the relationship is the usual one between a girl and a virile man.’ She was perched on the arm of an easy chair and now she regarded him with a lack of expression that possessed its own significance. ‘Some of us still make our own amusements,’ she murmured. ‘Now how about that other half?’ She rose and took his glass. Their fingers touched.

  He got up quickly. ‘I must go; I left my stew on the gas, and you’re expecting company. I just brought the eggs. . . .’

  He was retreating towards the passage as h
e spoke. He thrust his feet into his gum boots, picked up his milk-can and fumbled for the latch. ‘See you,’ he threw back over his shoulder, testing the slates of the path for rime. Lucy’s expression was strained.

  Chapter Three

  Noble was late, and in a bad mood. His face softened a little at the sight of Lucy’s table but obviously he wasn’t happy. He’d been drinking, too, which was unusual. On Friday nights he had been accustomed to come straight from the factory to Thornbarrow, not even calling at his own home at the mouth of the dale. True, there had been a disruption in this routine over the past few weeks but he might have been expected to return to the old arrangement without diversions. He knew this.

  ‘I called and had a drink with Sarah,’ he explained. He had to justify the drink anyway; she would smell the whisky on his breath.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Oh, you know Sarah: she can’t take much in by six o’clock in the evening.’ Lucy measured sherry carefully into a pan on the stove. He watched moodily, nursing a large Scotch. ‘I wanted to see her before the weekend,’ he went on. ‘Things aren’t going at all well.’

  ‘At the factory?’

  He nodded gloomily. ‘I don’t think we can keep it up; the bottom’s dropped out of the market. For Christ’s sake, people are economising on their own food!’ He produced a superior kind of pet food. ‘I thought if we introduced more cereals and used less meat, have a publicity campaign stressing how much healthier a cereal-based diet is—’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I don’t know but I daresay we can find a boffin who will say so. But we need more capital: for new plant and for publicity, so I had to talk to Sarah. . . .’ He stopped.

  ‘And she wasn’t amenable?’

  ‘She suggested we sell the factory and start farming.’

  ‘Oh, Denny!’

  ‘Well, my sweet, at six o’clock! She’s probably sunk half a bottle since this morning. She said, “I haven’t a penny to spare, love, and with things the way they are, we ought to get out while the going’s good and put the money into something that pays—like sheep.”’ Lucy licked her lips. ‘Don’t look like that,’ Noble admonished. ‘She didn’t mean it; I’ll have another go at her Sunday morning—I’ll take her up to Storms for a drink. Oh, you think that would be indiscreet? I suppose you’re right. But I’ll persuade her to let me have some money, you’ll see. It’s just that any request for cash she sees as a threat to her way of life: less money, less drink. She sees threats everywhere; hallucinogenic, that’s the word.’

  ‘Threats?’

  ‘She’s getting hallucinations. I’m terrified she’ll have an accident—she must do sooner or later, but she won’t give up driving. She’s terrified herself. She said the old Escort had a lot of play in the steering, but the steering was as firm as a rock. But she bought this Marina and it’s much more difficult for her to drive; she says she can’t judge its width. Thank God she doesn’t go out except in the mornings when she’s relatively sober. D’you know what she asked me tonight?’

  ‘No. What?’

  ‘Would I stand by her if she killed someone.’

  ‘What on earth was in her mind?’

  ‘I don’t know. Does the brain soften in these cases?’

  ‘You’d have to ask a doctor. But one thing you should be thankful for: you haven’t got a quarrelsome wife.’

  ‘Ah, that is something. Poor Sarah; I don’t think she’s ever said a harsh word to me about you.’

  Lucy looked astonished. ‘Of course she wouldn’t; she’s grateful to me.’

  ‘Grateful?’

  ‘Darling, Sarah’s terribly middle-class—so are you, of course—but in Sarah’s book you just don’t neglect husbands. In sickness and in health, you know: all that bit. Sarah knows she can’t make a decent home for you now, but I save her from being guilty. I take her place. Well? Don’t I?’

  ‘You do far more than that, my sweet.’

  She smiled, pushed a pan to one side of the stove, and took a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from the refrigerator.

  ‘We won’t need ice for this,’ she said, ‘we’ll drink it too quickly.’

  In the living room they toasted each other and he sat and regarded the fire absently.

  ‘George Harper called,’ she told him. ‘Zeke sent him down with the eggs. What an ordinary little man he is, and no topic of conversation at all. No manners; I don’t mean he’s rude exactly—it’s that he has no idea of how to behave. He gawked at my dress and at the table, but obviously thought it wasn’t done to compliment me or even to comment on the fact that I was entertaining. I gave him a whisky and he was as nervous as a cat but didn’t know how to take his leave. I had to throw him out in the end.’

  ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘Very simple. One fits the means to the man. I propositioned him.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘Don’t worry; he’s sitting in Burblethwaite now, burping over his stew and watching telly and wondering if he imagined it. Oh, I’m sure he’ll be thinking that sex lies in the remote past for people of his age, so what on earth—? He’ll think he’s starting to have hallucinations. Surrey, he comes from, doesn’t he? I see him in a semi with a pocket handkerchief garden and a rotary lawn mower—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What d’you mean: no?’

  ‘He’s not suburban. He says he’s a wholesale tool merchant. I should leave it at that.’

  ‘Why, darling, you’re not jealous of George Harper?’

  He shook his head seriously. He looked very tired and the fatigue was in his voice. ‘No, I’m not worried about Harper. What’s that delicious smell?”

  Lucy changed gear smoothly. ‘Which one? We’re having kidneys in sherry for starters, a carbonade to follow, and grouse. There’s a bilberry flan if you can manage it.’

  ‘Now that’s unfair: all my favourites in one night.’

  *

  By the time they reached the grouse, he was rather drunk and his beefy face was a dangerous red. Lucy said casually as she served him, ‘That fire’s too hot on your back; move round to the side and take off your jacket.’

  He obeyed, scraping his chair. ‘Had a bit too much to drink,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘The food will act as blotting paper, and you’re not driving.’

  ‘Blotting paper!’ He regarded his grouse with reverence and giggled. ‘One thing, you’ll never be one of the millions of unemployed; you could get a position any day as a chef.’ He returned to his plate. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Quite perfect.’

  ‘Have some watercress; it’s good for the blood.’

  ‘You do take care of me, Lucy.’

  She shrugged and helped herself to salad. She had no grouse. She leaned one elbow on the table and her arm, in the red velvet, made a pretty line in the soft light. Noble’s eyes were held by her colour and sparkle but his concentration was on the food. They ate in a companionable silence for a while before she asked: ‘Has Miles Mossop been in court yet?’

  ‘Yes; while we were in town. I saw Hendry at lunch-time: the C.I.D. inspector. The magistrates refused to give Mossop the benefit of the doubt. I’m not surprised; he wouldn’t make a good impression on the court. He’s an uncouth bugger.’ Lucy said nothing. Noble chewed stolidly, staring at a candle flame. At length he said, ‘Curious about that crate of Scotch; a chap in his position doesn’t have to buy the odd crate that fell off the back of a lorry, but it was stolen all right, and just the one.’

  ‘Could someone have planted it in his cellar?’

  ‘Would they? I doubt it: too expensive a gesture. But he’s a fellow without principles; perhaps someone had it outside in the boot of a car and offered it to him at a discount. He’d know it was stolen, of course. Point is: who else knew? Someone was after Mossop’s blood. Hendry told me: the police got a tip-off about that whisky.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Anonymous. You’d expect it to be a waiter or someone else who’d left unde
r a cloud, but he hasn’t sacked anyone for six months.’

  ‘It’s someone who’s still there then, who hates him quietly. That must be an unpleasant thought for him.’

  ‘There’s no staff at Storms during the winter. It’s the person who tipped off the police who’ll be having a bad time now: wondering if Mossop suspects him, and what he’ll do if he finds out.’

  The latch of the back door clicked. She glanced up quickly but Noble, crumbling a roll, had heard nothing. The inner door was flung open and a girl stood there, a girl with short yellow hair and a vapid little face which was now sharp and ugly. She wore a huge bottle-green coat and her head was sunk between her shoulders as if she had no neck. Her eyes were quite mad.

  Lucy’s face was blank. Noble looked up, followed her glance and froze. The girl’s face didn’t change. She stared at him with unbearable intensity. Her hands were hidden in her wide sleeves and she shivered spasmodically.

  ‘Why didn’t you call back?’ Her voice rose, almost out of control.

  Noble was speechless and it was Lucy who responded. ‘Come in and shut the door; both doors.’

  Noble turned to her and said, with the elaborate diction of a drunk fighting to get a grip on himself: ‘What would you like me to do?’

  Lucy said with the faintest smile, ‘If Peta won’t, perhaps you would close the doors.’

  He got up carefully, holding the edge of the table and testing his legs.

  Peta Mossop repeated tonelessly, ‘Why didn’t you ring me?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him,’ Lucy said, and took a sip of her claret. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

  Noble had stopped in the centre of the room. ‘What didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘It’s bitterly cold with both doors open,’ Lucy reminded him tightly.

  He jerked into action, blundered past the girl and slammed the outer door. Lucy’s chin rose a fraction. He closed the living room door with exaggerated care. Peta made no move to sit down. He glanced at Lucy and drew out the chair that had its back to the fire.