Murder Fortissimo Read online

  The sweetness and light phase currently in vogue was always fairly short-lived, to Alice’s relief. It was much more trying than when Christiane was in full flood as a bullying monster. The sweet little old lady pose, oozing exhausted, neglected resignation was too much like hard work for Christiane, she was too much Ghengis Khan and not enough Mother Theresa to sustain the performance. And that was what made her dramatic acceptance of Firstone Grange all the more mystifying. Alice had shown her mother the newspaper article with no real hope of persuading her to try the place, but what could possibly have made her so suddenly amenable? The anticipated tantrum had never materialized and the sneer, that initial curl her of her lip, was replaced by a gleeful, mischievous smirk which was new to Alice, something she had never witnessed. But what did it mean? Nothing good, that was certain, and Alice found that Christiane’s quiet, satisfied complacency was proving much more alarming than a torrent of abuse.

  The previous few days had tumbled over themselves with Alice bobbing along – she fumbled for images, like – like a coracle nearing a thundering, crashing waterfall. Exactly a week ago two things had happened, two earthquakes, two … she ran out of metaphors and similes and reverted to pure astonishment. What happened? How could something like this, two somethings in fact, happen to me? And in one day?

  The first pebble in the avalanche had been the article in the local paper, and the effect it had had on Alice herself. How did I dare, she wondered now, a week later; how did I dare hand her the paper and suggest she should try Firstone Grange?

  Whatever well of desperation had forced her to take that step, she hadn’t really expected anything to come of it, so the real avalanche, earthquake – whatever it was – had struck when, instead of becoming abusive, Christiane Marchant had agreed to try a month’s respite care.

  Her mother, the decision made, had withdrawn into herself a little, brooding though not on any unpleasant topic, Alice thought. There was an air of ripe satisfaction about the older woman, an unpleasant complacency, a sort of who’d have thought it about her attitude. Whatever machinations were going on behind the façade Alice was too tired to investigate, too weary to care and, to tell the truth, too afraid of what she might discover if she did ever manage to lift the lid and see into the seething cauldron of vicious spite that was, she knew, her mother’s default position.

  Alice had squeezed in a preliminary visit to Firstone Grange, registered her mother for a month’s visit starting almost immediately and to include Christmas and New Year, and handed over the enormous sum of money required. Later she went in state with Christiane on a tour of inspection. Normally she loathed the palaver entailed in transporting her mother from one place to another, booking the taxi, washing and ironing, dressing the invalid while picking up one discarded outfit after another from where they had been flung to the ground in a fit of petulance. For the visit of inspection, however, all Alice was required to do was act as lady-in-waiting while the grande dame made her stately progress round Firstone Grange, a gracious nod here, a graceful phrase of greeting there, making sure that everyone understood they were shortly to be honoured with a Presence.

  The bedroom Matron showed Christiane was approved with a faint, die-away smile, as was her comment about the bathroom.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Miss Winslow explained with a slightly apologetic smile: ‘We don’t have any ground-floor bedrooms but you should find it quite easy to manage the wheelchair in the lift. I’m so sorry you were just too late to secure one of the rooms with en suite facilities, but there it is. The bathroom is just down the landing, fully kitted-out for disabled guests and in the near future I hope it will be possible to have every room ensuite.’

  Leading the procession towards the lift Miss Winslow failed, unlike Alice, to note the way Christiane Marchant’s gaze strayed towards the name card tucked into the brass slots on one of the neighbouring bedroom doors. A satisfied, almost feline, smile spread across the plump features, the dark eyes glittered under their slightly hooded brows and she glided down the landing still smiling.

  Scurrying along after her mother and Miss Winslow, an insignificant moon in the wake of two major planets, Alice cast a curious glance at the name on the door. Ellen Ransom. It meant nothing to her nor did she register as significant the way her mother paused for a moment as they passed the open door of the drawing-room, her eyes narrowing as she stared wide-eyed, transfixed in astonishment, at a stocky, balding old man hunched over a game of patience. As Alice caught up with her mother, the man looked up, impaled on that dark and burning gaze, and stared back at Christiane, his pale eyes puzzled and wary but showing no recognition. With a weary gesture he turned back to his playing cards.

  To Alice’s further mystification her mother seemed buoyed up by the visit and the face she turned to her daughter as they clambered and manoeuvred her into the taxi was shining with a malicious delight.

  ‘Well, daughter mine,’ she purred. ‘You really have excelled yourself this time; I think I’m going to enjoy myself there. For once you’ve managed to do the right thing, though it’s for all the wrong reasons.’ She fulminated to herself for the rest of the half-mile journey to the large, inconvenient house on the outskirts of the village, and then as Alice settled her in the wing chair for a rest, Mrs Marchant turned to her daughter.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know why you want me out of the way,’ she spat, reaching for the remote control. ‘You think, with Christmas coming, that there’ll be men on the loose, looking for a good time. Well don’t kid yourself, Alice, so they may be but what they’re looking for isn’t a thirty-nine-year-old virgin who wouldn’t know a good time if it bit her on the nose.’

  Alice had schooled herself to endure this kind of tirade with a blank face, knowing that her impassive reception incensed her mother, but this time she couldn’t restrain a small gasp. Christiane gave a triumphant smirk.

  ‘Underneath everything you’re not actually bad-looking. In fact you could be like I was if you put your mind to it, though you’ll never have my vivacious sex-appeal; you’re too like your grandmother, the wicked old bitch.’ The thought of her mother-in-law, dead for more than forty years, could still inflame Christiane’s temper.

  Alice turned on her heel, actually biting her tongue to prevent the outpouring of grief and anguish that threatened to engulf her. If only Daddy hadn’t died, she wailed to herself, Mother was always careful not to let him see this side of her, the venom of her tongue had been restrained then, unbridled now. Why was she like this? What had made her use people in this manner? A faint memory from her childhood surfaced, an impression of her father telling Alice a story and making her promise not to upset her mother, but what could it have been? Alice felt only the haziest stirring of memory and her father had never mentioned it again, whatever it had been. The truth is, Alice thought now, that I’ve always switched off when Mother went on at me, it made life so much easier not to hear her diatribes. Sometimes though, it wasn’t possible to switch off.

  ‘I’m going to work now; I’ve left you a sandwich in the kitchen.’ Alice picked up her handbag from the small oak table by the door and made her escape. Out in the garden she scrabbled for her Ventolin inhaler and took a couple of puffs to make the burning in her chest subside, then leant against the side wall of the house, uncontrollable spasms wracking her body, hot tears stinging her eyes.

  ‘Oh God,’ she railed aloud, but hushed, an agonized but muted howl. ‘Oh God, please, please help me. Help me to cope, give me the strength to endure. Don’t, please don’t let me have a breakdown but please, please, God, please make her die.’

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  ‘Let’s see.…’ Harriet Quigley dumped her bag on the bed and ran through her checklist out loud as she started to unpack. ‘Nighties, dressing gown, sponge bag, spare underclothes, spare outer clothes; four books – which I certainly won’t get through in the day or so I’ll be here, but they’ll be useful later on, when I get to Firstone Grange. O
ut-of-office message set up for emails; mobile phone switched off. Anything else I haven’t done?’

  The lie she had told her cousin Sam, sat heavily on her conscience, but she shrugged it off. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, she thought, philosophically. Besides, he knows how squeamish I am. He’ll understand.

  When Alice Marchant reached the office, she let herself in through the back door and ran straight into yet another earthquake. Barry Williams’s rumbling boom could be heard in the front reception area, with a lighter, younger voice interjecting the odd comment or question. I can’t face clients, she thought, and reached for the kettle; I need a cup of tea after Mother.… She shied away from her mother’s frank appraisal of her, still too agitated to escape into the small sanctuary of her daydreams, even though the brisk walk up the hill had calmed her nerves a little.

  ‘Is that you, Alice?’

  Barry Williams was a small, jolly man in his early sixties, his air of eternal optimism at odds with his chronic bad luck. He was currently trying to extricate himself from a financial mess his ex-wife had dragged him into. Only Barry would have been foolish enough to let himself be named guarantor for the enormous loan she had taken out so that she could open a guest house. ‘I really thought she could make a go of it,’ he had confided his disappointment to Alice, his round red face glum and surprised as he reluctantly put his own house on the market to pay off the debt.

  ‘I’ve got some fabulous news,’ he beamed at her now. ‘Is that tea? Splendid, bring three cups in with you, dear, we’re celebrating. I’ve finally sold the business, so come and meet your new boss.’

  Alice felt her stomach churn and her heart grow heavy as she obediently took three mugs of tea into the main office; she had been dreading this moment. A welcome retirement with his debts paid and just enough to buy a tiny flat would prove paradise for Barry but what of Alice? Who else will employ me, she mourned. What other employer will put up with my incompetent typing, as well as the time off I have to take when Mother’s being more difficult than usual. And a new owner is bound to buy some new computers and I’ll have no idea what to do with them.

  The tall thin man was introduced as Neil Slater. She had heard of him through the local grapevine and knew he was highly regarded. He looked about her own age, with a pleasant smile – a kind smile – she thought with a glimmer of hope, as he accepted the mug of tea she proffered.

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything, not a word, till it was all signed, in case it all went pear-shaped.’ Barry bounced across the room. ‘You know one or two of my little ventures have been a bit of a disappointment lately, but we finalized everything this morning and it’s all official.’ Still beaming at his own financial acumen he turned to Neil Slater. ‘How many branches have you got now, Neil? Four including this one, isn’t it?’

  Neil gave a pleasant nod and included Alice in his answer.

  ‘I’d like to get this branch established as part of my group,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot to offer here, plenty of housing and great transport links, with the motorway, airport, trains and the ferry ports. I know there are one or two of the big estate agencies already here but I’m convinced there’s room for the kind of customized service a small, independent business like this can provide. Besides, I think it’ll be fun.’

  Alice was touched by the way his long, rather equine features lit up with a boyish enthusiasm at that last assertion.

  ‘Well, it will be.’ He shot her a shy grin, responding with gratitude to her evident sympathy. ‘I’m planning to start off here, using this as my base, I think. I’ve got a good team running the established branches and you and Barry have a good little outfit here. It’s not far for me to travel either.’

  He answered her look of enquiry, explaining, ‘My mother died last year and since then I’ve been converting our old family home into two flats; it’s in Locksley just beyond Hursley, no journey at all and I’d be going against the flow of the traffic so the rush hour wouldn’t be a problem.’

  Barry rubbed his hands together, radiating satisfaction, rosy with pleasure. ‘Well, this is all splendid, isn’t it? I’m sure Alice will agree to stay on to help you, Neil, she’s a tower of strength.’

  In spite of her terror at the prospect of leaving her job Alice could have killed him; she could see that Neil was taken aback though he manfully tried to conceal a flicker of dismay. In the mirror above the filing cabinets Alice could see herself, thin and anxious, dark hair scragged back into a bun, worried grooves ploughed between her brows and – oh God, not tears, please not tears, as her eyes began to glitter. What will he think of me?

  When she dared look up at her new boss she found him biting his lip as he surveyed her. ‘Look, Miss Marchant,’ he spoke abruptly, coming to a sudden decision. ‘Why don’t you come out with me now to have a look at some of the properties on your books? Barry says you know all about the business and it makes sense for us to get to know each other. I’ve obviously gone into the financial side pretty thoroughly and I believe we could have a little gold mine here, but it would be valuable to get your angle on things.’

  Barry sat down at his desk at the back of the room with the Father Christmas glow happily in place. ‘Miss Marchant?’ He shook his head playfully at Neil. ‘What’s this? Call the girl Alice, for goodness sake, “Miss Marchant” sounds much too formal. Now off you go, I’ll hold the fort, it’s much too near Christmas for anyone to be thinking of moving.’

  He gave them a genial wave to push them out of the office and settled down to watch the portable television he kept discreetly tucked away on top of the cupboard in the kitchen. If a potential client ventured in through the front door Barry could flick the remote and be all attention, the snooker or soap opera vanished in an instant.

  Ellen Ransom liked watching television too, though not soaps or snooker; she preferred something pretty about gardens or an undemanding film, a love story for choice. It had been a struggle today, she reflected, to bag the most comfortable chair in the drawing-room, just close enough to the fire for comfort but not near enough to scorch.

  One or two new ones these last few days and more to come, they said. Somebody had been eavesdropping past the office, easy enough to do; stop, wheeze, lean on the wall and look pathetic or drop for a rest on the upright hall chair, just by the grandfather clock. Who would question you? They all did it, even the la-di-da ones, though they pretended not to, stuck up bitches. A sour smile did nothing to lighten Ellen’s face. They were no better than she was – money talked wherever it had come from and Ellen’s money didn’t come from piddling scrimping and saving, not likely; her money had come in a lump sum, a pools win way back, and then Douglas had spoilt it all by dying so suddenly.

  She shook her head to get rid of the memory and wondered about the stir there had been this morning. Some woman in a wheelchair had come to view while Ellen had been out in the minibus and the gossip ran that she looked the kind who thought a lot of herself. Oh well, somebody else with a bit of character about her, even some pepper, might spice things up a bit, they were a bland bunch so far.

  That old bloke over there – with the scanty tufts of hair punctuating his bald head – from Room 7 just down the landing from her; said to be a retired bank manager shoved in here to give his family a bit of a respite. Look at him staring at the carpet, not all there by a long chalk.

  And then there was that one sitting in the window, mild as milk with her nose in her book, but watching them all. She looks younger than the rest of us, Ellen decided, though she had to be sixty, that was the rule, but she didn’t look it. There was something about her that gave Ellen the creeps – a kind of I know what you’ve been up to and it simply won’t do sort of feeling. Not fair, when chance would be a fine thing, nothing to get up to; schoolmistress, that’s what that one looked like.

  Ellen would have been gratified to know how spot on she was with her diagnosis.

  Harriet Quigley shifted to a more comfortable position and congratulated
herself on her strategy. No way, she thought, would she allow friends and neighbours to ferret her out, and the retreat had worked well enough as a cover story. She felt a pang of guilt about her cousin Sam. Maybe I should have told him, she admitted to herself, but I can’t help being such a wimp about hospitals and I certainly didn’t want anyone else to know; hence the sphinx-like silence at that wretched dinner party.

  No, Sam was squeamish too and since his wife’s death he was out of touch with ‘female troubles’. Harriet winced at the memory of the consultant as he briskly informed her ‘it’s better out than in, nothing to worry about but you’ll be more comfortable, start running marathons? Take up trampolining?’ He had spoken only the truth however. The day or two in the smoothly efficient private hospital, now to be followed by a gentle recuperation at Firstone Grange, looked set to do the trick; none of the lying around for weeks that Harriet remembered from her mother’s experience.

  Her terror of hospitals had been, well lulled was the word, though not diminished. Although she still felt very tired, Firstone Grange, she considered, was doing her proud so far; pleasant staff, delightful room with its own bathroom, delicious food. So far it was living up to its promise, and so it should considering the cost, but … she cast a discreet glance round the room. I’m not so sure about some of the other inmates though. Residents, guests even, she corrected herself hastily, not inmates. Matron certainly wouldn’t like that word.

  Tim Armstrong stared miserably out at the garden, bright under the low December sunshine but otherwise dismally bare, lacking in colour. The stark black silhouettes of the trees and shrubs against the sky, a few late leaves drifting slowly down on to the damp lawn, all added to the melancholy that seemed to be his constant companion these days.