Some Deaths Before Dying Read online

  “I’m not trying to buy it. Please. I just want to talk to the owners.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been asked not to talk to anyone about it. I should never have taken it to the show, but I didn’t know.”

  “Please, if I could explain to you, then at least you could pass the message on. May I come in?”

  “I don’t let people I don’t know in, especially at night. Sorry.”

  She started to close the door. He resisted.

  “Stop. Please. You’ve got to talk to me. Thing is, I’ve got the other pistol. And the box and all the trimmings.”

  “You’ve got them with you?”

  “They’re in the bank. Listen, I’m absolutely with you about not letting strangers in if you’re on your own. I’ve been waiting for you over at the pub. Suppose I went back there. Would you come and join me for a drink? Ten minutes only.”

  Oh, Jesus, a drink, and not alone!…Jenny merely pretended to hesitate.

  “Oh, all right. Ten minutes. I’ve got work to do.”

  “That’s OK. I’m truly grateful. What’ll you have?”

  “Draught stout, if they’ve got it.”

  (The wine would be dire, and spirits risky.)

  “It’ll be waiting for you.”

  She closed the door and ran upstairs to check that he was crossing the road and not lurking in ambush for her behind the forsythia. He was still on the near pavement, waiting for a gap in the traffic, a large man who carried himself well. He was wearing a Barbour and tweed cap. The look was horsey country gentry, easy for a con man to fake, if he was one.

  She counterdressed, for the hell of it, keeping the jeans but changing into her “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” sweatshirt and butterfly earrings, and left without hurrying, nearly ten minutes after he had.

  She and Jeff weren’t regular pub-goers, though there was a pleasant little one a couple of miles across the fields, along footpaths, to which they would sometimes walk out at weekends. The Frenchman across the road was not of that kind. Even out of season there was often a coach or two in its park. There was a bouncy castle behind, and it advertised itself with a gross cartoon of a grinning sausage in a chef’s hat serving sausages and mash to a family of salivating sausages.

  The man was waiting without apparent impatience in a fake Victorian alcove in the saloon bar. The drinks were already on the table. His was Perrier. He rose and waited for her, smiling. Presumably he recognised her from the TV programme. His face was as military as his bearing, clean shaven, with an outdoor ruddiness. His grey hair, sparse but not balding, was cut short. His eyes were pale blue, with the stony, unimaginative look of a caste accustomed to command. They didn’t, to Jenny, seem in keeping with his voice, gruff and level but, she thought, too deliberately affable. She didn’t respond to his smile. He read the blazon on her bosom and grinned. She maintained the professional chill of her mien, but he didn’t seem put out.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “I know it’s an intrusion, Mrs. Pilcher. It’s very good of you to spare me the time. My name is Dick Matson, by the way.”

  He produced a card and gave it to her. He worked, apparently, for a firm in Devon which dealt in agricultural feeds. His home address was near Tiverton. Jenny would have placed him in a considerably posher line of business.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I’ve got a few minutes. What do you want?”

  “Well, it’s a bit tricky, so I’d better make it clear that I’m not making any accusations. This is just something I want sorted out.”

  He picked up a brown envelope that had been lying on the table, took out a photograph and gave it to her. It was an eight-by-six, black and white on matte paper, and looked fairly old, but the focus was spot on, with every detail exact, the two pistols nestling into their fitted box with tools and paraphernalia around them. There was no mistaking the silver initials on the butts.

  “That certainly looks like it,” she said. “How did you get hold of this?”

  “My mother took it,” he said. “Ages ago. She gave my father the pistols just after the war some time. She’d no idea how good they were—bought them for the initials, same as his, you see—but then Dad did a bit of research and found out about Ladurie and all that.

  My interest is that Dad left them to me in his will, and then he had a couple of strokes, pretty bad, but he hung on for a couple of years not knowing much about anything, and when he finally snuffed it they’d disappeared. My mother’s still with us, but she’s past it too now, poor old thing, and whenever I’ve asked her about the pistols she’s thrown a wobbly, so I’ve been waiting till she passed on before I did anything about it. They were supposed to be in the bank, like I told you…”

  “You said you’d got the other one.”

  “Did I? Well yes, but you weren’t giving me much chance to catch your attention. Sorry about that, but you’ll see why my eyebrows went up when you showed up on the box toting one of Dad’s pistols?”

  “I suppose so, if that’s what it is. I mean, are you sure that one of yours is missing? If you haven’t actually seen them. I mean…”

  “Well, no, I can’t be dead sure, but I’d bet my boots there aren’t any others. Ladurie didn’t make that many guns and his order-books still exist—Dad went into all this—and ours are there just as a single pair. The entry’s marked J. M. You see?”

  “All right. I’ll accept that. Now, before we go on I’ll need to know how you got hold of me. The people at the programme promised us total confidentiality, and I’m careful about that sort of thing.”

  “I was afraid you’d ask that. It’s a bit awkward. I’ll put it like this. Programme comes from Bristol, right? Well, it just so happens that there’s someone there who owes me a considerable good turn. I called them—notice I’m not saying if it’s a man or a woman—and said—”

  “Had you called the programme first and found out that they weren’t going to tell you anything?”

  “Not how I do things. If you know someone in the business, you get straight onto them. Networking, don’t they call it these days? So I didn’t think anything of it till this whoever got back to me and said they’d got what I wanted but I mustn’t let on how I’d found out or they and a good friend of theirs would be really in the shit. Of course if I’d known that’s how it was in the first place, I’d never have asked them. You see?”

  “In that case, I’m afraid—“

  “Hold it. Hold it a moment. As far as I can see we’re in much the same boat. We’ve both got hold of something the other one thinks we’ve no right to, and neither of us is willing to say how we got it. The difference is—now, don’t get me wrong, I’m dead sure you’re doing it in all innocence—but the difference is that all I’ve got is a name—I looked your number up in the book—it had to be somewhere near the Maidstone and there’s not that many Pilchers around—the difference is that what you’ve got is worth quite a lot of money, once the pistols are back together again, which they bloody well ought to be in any case, and one way or another, Mrs. Pilcher, I intend to see that it happens. I don’t want to have to go to law over it, if I can help it. Bloody expensive, lawyers are, in case you don’t know…”

  “I’m one myself.”

  “Are you now? Are you now?”

  The blue eyes had come to life and were twinkling with factitious charm, but Jenny guessed that this was his response to being for the first time mildly taken aback. She didn’t much like Mr. Matson and was far from sure how much of the truth he was telling her. A good deal, she guessed, but neither the whole, nor nothing but. He had, however, two holds on her of which he was unaware. The minor one was that she was enjoying her drink and now wanted the other half. The major one was that at all costs the thing should be sorted out without troubling Uncle Albert.

  Jenny had been looking through the boxes in the attic for clothes for the Oxfam sale while she waited for the engineer to service the washing machine. She’d had to take the whole day o
ff because they wouldn’t tell her when he was coming. She’d found the box beneath, some strange old cricketing whites—wrong shape and generation for Jeff, and he’d never been a games player, but she had found no end to the weirdness of the objects he’d hung on to. (She herself was a ruthless thrower-out, except in the case of cotton socks. Her bottom drawer held nothing else but favourite pairs, now worn so thin that they would have been in holes after one more use, so she had not been able to bring them to that point. Typically, Jeff had never queried this quirk.) When she’d opened the box and seen the pistol she’d thought it was the same kind of hoarded curiosity as the cricket whites, but beautiful. Then the doorbell had rung, so she’d carried it: downstairs and put it on the hallway shelf as she opened the door.

  Her caller was the engineer she’d been waiting for, a cheery oaf who apparently expected to be admired for the simple virtue of being male, and became openly contemptuous when Jenny didn’t respond. They had parted in mutual loathing, leaving Jenny feeling that she couldn’t move comfortably around her own kitchen until it was aired and decontaminated of his presence.

  Then Anita Verey had shown up to collect the Oxfam clothes, but also carrying an absurd clock ornamented with stuffed finches which bobbled around at the strike, a series of bird-like twitters. She was on her way to ask about it at this TV programme which happened to be in town. She’d wanted someone to chat to while she queued. Jenny had felt the need to be out of the house for a bit. Anita was good company, and it would be pleasant to get to know her better. Thus it was that Jenny had taken Uncle Albert’s pistol to The Antiques Roadshow last summer.

  She’d told Jeff when he came home.

  “Oh, God!” he’d said. “It’s all right, darling, you couldn’t have known. Let’s just hope the old boy doesn’t get to see the programme. When’s it on?”

  “Uncle Albert? Why? What’s up?”

  “You remember I had to sort his stuff out when he went into Marlings? He was a bit more on the spot then than he is now, but he was pretty bewildered all the same. He sat in the middle of the room while I did the packing. He wasn’t interested. Anything I asked him about he said, ’I’m through with that. Chuck it out.’ I’d noticed he was clutching this box on his lap and I assumed it was something he was set on taking with him, but when I’d finished he pulled himself together and handed it to me.

  “‘Now you’ve got to take care of this,’ he said. ’Seeing I don’t know who’s going to come poking around this place you’re sending me to. You put it somewhere safe and don’t you go showing it around nor telling anyone about it. Right?’

  “I took it from him and without thinking I started to open the box and see what was in it, but…well, remember me telling you how I was brought up scared stiff of him, though as far as I know he’d never laid a finger on anyone, or even raised his voice to them.”

  “He’s got the most beautiful manners still. That’s how I’m going to raise ours, if I can.”

  “You probably can’t see it, but it’s pretty well in my genes, being scared of the old boy. I’d thought I was past it, but by God, no.

  “ ‘And what do you think you’re up to, my lad? Did I say open it up? Did I? No I did not. Put it away somewhere safe, I said, and don’t you go showing it around nor telling anyone about it. Right?’ ”

  Jeff had got the old soldier’s voice and manner spot on. He then laughed and shook his head, as if trying to come to terms with his having let himself be so dominated.

  “You did look, all the same,” said Jenny. “You knew it was a pistol.”

  “Well, yes. I was putting it away and decided I’d better check, but even then I felt guilty. God, I bet there was more than one recruit who pissed himself when Uncle Albert picked on him for dirty boots or something. Let’s just hope he doesn’t see the programme. When’s it on?”

  “Next winter sometime. They shoot miles more than they use, so they’ll probably leave me out.”

  But they hadn’t. She’d watched the programme with Jeff the Sunday before he’d left for Paris. All other reasons for watching were instantly forgotten in her fascination by her own appearance…nothing like the mirror of course, but not much like photographs, or even the odd glimpse on a wedding video. This was the Jenny strangers seemed to see, the chilly little bitch. (She had actually overheard that phrase after a case conference, from a QC who had tried to chat her up.) Yes, there was more than a touch of that on this apparently neutral occasion, when she hadn’t at all been aware of turning it on deliberately…and anyway she must stop wearing that denim jacket. It gave her a curious hump in profile…

  “Well, let’s just hope he’s missed it,” said Jeff with a worried sigh, as he switched off.

  “He can’t still do anything to you, darling.”

  “It isn’t really that. Or not just that. He hasn’t got much grasp of what’s going on these days, but that doesn’t stop him being pretty-shrewd at times. I told you he was talking about selling his medals to help with the fees at Marlings…”

  “He can’t. You’ve got power of attorney.”

  “That isn’t the point. I think he’s worked out that I’m paying some of it—he’s no idea how much, of course, but he still doesn’t like it. He hates the idea that he might be dependent on anyone. He’s saved all his life for his retirement, and he thinks that and his pension and the little bit he gets from the Cambi Road Association ought to be enough to see him out. Of course it isn’t, anything like, not at Marlings anyway. He likes it there. He’s got friends. The staff think he’s great. But if he decides that I can push him around and do what I like with his stuff because I’m paying the fees, he’s going to try and insist on moving out and going somewhere he can afford on his own. It would kill him, for a start, and anyway there’s no such place. Besides, I just don’t want the hassle, I get quite enough of that at work.”

  “Suppose I went and talked to him. I could tell him it was all my fault, and you didn’t know anything about it…”

  “It’s a thought. Look, I’ll call Sister Morris now and tell her we’ve just seen something on the box that might upset him, and could she just check if he’s OK without letting on that’s what she’s up to…”

  Sister Morris had said that the residents had been having their tea during the programme. The TV had been left on, but it was much more likely to have been ITV, and anyway Uncle Albert had had his back to it. He was fine. So that had seemed to be that.

  Until now.

  Jenny finished her drink, taking her time. Mr. Matson didn’t seem to mind waiting. If he was telling anything like the truth, he, or at least his family. obviously had a good claim on the pistol. For herself, she wouldn’t, have had any hesitation in handing it over, given reasonable proof of ownership, and she didn’t imagine Jeff would either. But she was pretty sure he wouldn’t do so without consulting Uncle Albert, who’d then be extremely upset, try and insist on leaving Marlings, and so on.

  Fortunately, Mr. Matson didn’t know about any of that, and otherwise he was no great problem to deal with. Apparent cooperation without any concessions—the lawyer’s stock-in-trade. So, since the company wasn’t particularly enjoyable, she concentrated on not wasting her pleasure in the stout, relishing both the mild alcoholic kick and the way the smooth creaminess contrasted and combined with the slight harshness in the flavour.

  “What about the other half?” he said as she put her glass down.

  “My turn,” she said, rising. “What’s yours?”

  He glanced ostentatiously at the slogan on her bosom and chuckled.

  “If you insist,” he said. “Another of the same, thanks. I’m driving to Devon.”

  “We had a cook once, used to drink stout,” he said when she carried the drinks back to the table. “Mrs. Moffet. Little nut of a woman, henpecked poor Moffet stupid, but she made a wonderful roly-poly. I’ve never tasted anything to touch it. Well, here’s mud in your eye, Mrs. Pilcher, and I’ll drink your health for real as soon as I’m home.”<
br />
  “How long will that take you?”

  “Bit under four hours, coming, but it’s Friday evening. I might be in by midnight if all goes well.”

  “You drove all this way, just on the off chance of seeing me?”

  “They matter to me, Dad’s pistols. The old boy was potty about them. I want the other one back. What do you say?”

  “It’s not as straightforward as that, Mr. Matson. As I’ve told you, the pistol doesn’t belong to me. I found it one day in the attic, when my husband was at work. A friend asked me to go with her to the Roadshow programme and I took it so that I’d have something to show too. I told my husband when he came home and he said it wasn’t his, either. It had been given to him for safekeeping by an elderly relative whose affairs he looked after, and he’d been asked to put it away and not talk about it or show it to anybody.”

  “A bit fishy, do you think?”

  “Not if you know the old man in question. It’s not just that he’s an ex-soldier—that doesn’t mean anything—but…well, no. I’m absolutely certain he came by it honestly, so all I can say is I’ll talk to my husband about it. Jeff’s in Paris at the moment, but he may call tomorrow morning and if he does I’ll tell him what’s happened, and then he or I will get in touch with you. That’s really the best I can do.”

  “All right,” he said, with surprising resignation. “I get you. You talk to your man. You keep my card. Now, I’ll tell you my offer. You’re obviously straight, Mrs. Pilcher, and I’ll take it your man is too—Jeff, did you say his name was?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So this is what you—”

  He stopped abruptly. He had been looking into her eyes, all sincerity. The look changed to one of astonished revelation. He gave a silent laugh.

  “Tell me,” he said. “This old soldier, the elderly relative you’ve been talking about—are we by any chance speaking of RSM Albert Fredricks of the Second Derbyshire Regiment? It’s all right, Mrs. Pilcher. You play your cards as close to your chest as you please, but last time I visited Sergeant Fred—that’s what we used to call him when we were kids—he was full of this nephew of his who kept his papers in order. Wasn’t he living with his sister near Aldershot someplace? Grand to know he’s still alive and kicking. RSM Fredricks, salt of the earth. I remember him since I was knee high. Tall and skinny—looked as long as a flag pole to a kid my age, with this bony great nose sticking out at the top. That was before the war, of course, then he went east with Dad and the Japs got them a week after they’d landed, and then they were on the Cambi Road together. And that pretty well did for them, except that they both had what it took to haul themselves round. Well, well, well, how is the old boy?”