7
The bedroom was on the third floor of the Hotel Genevieve, Cap Ferrat, with views over the gardens and terraces. The sun was already blazing in a clear, blue sky. It had been an excellent week: perfect food, superb wine, rubbing shoulders with the usual Mediterranean crowd. Even so, Sir Magnus Pye was in a bad mood as he finished his packing. The letter that had arrived three days ago had quite spoiled his holiday. He wished the bloody vicar had never sent it. Absolutely typical of the church, always meddling, trying to spoil everyone’s fun.
His wife watched him languidly from the balcony. She was smoking a cigarette. ‘We’re going to miss the train,’ she said.
‘The train doesn’t leave for three hours. We’ve got plenty of time.’
Frances Pye ground out her cigarette and came into the room. She was a dark, imperious woman, a little taller than her husband and certainly more imposing. He was short and round with florid cheeks and a dark beard that had spread hesitantly across his cheeks, not quite managing to lay claim to his face. Now fifty-three, he liked to wear suits that accentuated his age and his status in life. They were tailor-made for him, expensive, complete with waistcoat. The two of them made an unlikely pair: the country squire and the Hollywood actress, perhaps. Sancho Panza and Dulcinea del Toboso. Although he was the one with the title, it actually rested more easily on her. ‘You should have left at once,’ she said.
‘Absolutely not,’ Magnus grunted, trying to force down the lid of his suitcase. ‘She was only a bloody housekeeper.’
‘She lived with us.’
‘She lived in the Lodge House. Not the same thing at all.’
‘The police want to talk to you.’
‘The police can talk to me once I get back. Not that I’ve got anything to tell them. The vicar says she tripped over an electric wire. Damn shame, but it’s not my fault. They’re not going to suggest I murdered her or something?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past you, Magnus.’
‘Well, I couldn’t have. I was here the whole time with you.’
Frances Pye watched her husband struggling with the suitcase. She didn’t offer to help. ‘I thought you were fond of her,’ she said.
‘She was a good cook and she did a good job cleaning. But if you want the truth, I couldn’t really stand the sight of her – her and that son of hers. I always thought there was something a bit difficult about her, the way she scuttled around the place with that look in her eyes … like she knew something you didn’t.’
‘You should still have gone to the funeral.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the village will notice you aren’t there. They won’t like you for it.’
‘They don’t like me anyway. And they’ll like me even less when they hear about Dingle Dell. What do I care? I never set out to win any popularity contests and anyway, that’s the trouble with living in the country. All people do is gossip. Well, they can think what they like of me. In fact, the whole lot of them can go to Hell.’ He clicked the locks shut with his thumbs and sat back, panting slightly from the exertion.
Frances looked at him curiously and for a moment there was something in her eyes that hovered between disdain and disgust. There was no longer any love in their marriage. They both knew that. They stayed together because it was convenient. Even in the heat of the Côte D’Azur, the atmosphere in the room was cold. ‘I’ll call down for a porter,’ she said. ‘The taxi should be here by now.’ As she moved to the telephone, she noticed a postcard lying on a table. It was addressed to Frederick Pye at an address in Hastings. ‘For heaven’s sake, Magnus,’ she chided him. ‘You never sent that card to Freddy. You promised you would and it’s been sitting here all week.’ She sighed. ‘He’ll have got back home before it arrives.’
‘Well, the family he’s staying with can send it on. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not as if we had anything interesting to say.’
‘Postcards are never interesting. That’s not the point.’
Frances Pye picked up the telephone and called down to the front desk. As she spoke, Magnus was reminded of something. It was the mention of the postcard that had done it, something she had said. What was it? In some way, it was connected with the funeral that he would be missing today. Oh yes! How very strange. Magnus Pye made a mental note for himself, one that he would not forget. There was something he had to do and he would do it as soon as he got home.
8
‘Mary Blakiston made Saxby-on-Avon a better place for everyone else, whether it was arranging the flowers every Sunday in this very church, looking after the elderly, collecting for the RSPB or greeting visitors to Pye Hall. Her home-made cakes were always the star of the village fête and I can tell you there were many occasions when she would surprise me in the vestry with one of her almond bites or perhaps a slice of Victoria sponge.’
The funeral was proceeding in the way that funerals do: slowly, gently, with a sense of quiet inevitability. Jeffrey Weaver had been to a great many of them, standing on the sidelines, and took a keen interest in the people who came and went and, indeed, those who came and stayed. It never occurred to him that one day, in the not too far-off future, he would be the one being buried. He was only seventy-three and his father had lived to be a hundred. He still had plenty of time.
Jeffrey considered himself a good judge of character and cast an almost painterly eye over the crowd gathered around the grave that he had himself dug. He had his opinions about every one of them. And what better place than a funeral for a study in human nature?
First there was the vicar himself with his tombstone face and long, slightly unkempt hair. Jeffrey remembered when he had first come to Saxby-on-Avon, replacing the Reverend Montagu who had become increasingly eccentric in old age, repeating himself in his sermons and falling asleep during evensong. The Osbornes had been more than welcome when they arrived even if they were a slightly odd couple, she so much shorter than him, quite plump and pugnacious. She certainly never held back with her opinions, which Jeffrey rather admired – although it probably wasn’t a good idea for a vicar’s wife. He could see her now, standing behind her husband, nodding when she agreed with what he was saying, scowling when she didn’t. They were definitely close. That was for sure. But they were odd in more ways than one. What, for example, was their interest in Pye Hall? Oh yes, he had seen them a couple of times, slipping into the woodland that reached the bottom of their garden and which separated their property from Sir Magnus Pye. Quite a few people used Dingle Dell as a short cut to the manor house. It saved having to go all the way down to the Bath Road and then coming in through the main entrance. But normally, they didn’t do it in the middle of the night. What, he wondered, were they up to?