A Woman Unknown Page 0,30

nymph-like figure, his head tilted to one side.

She called, ‘Rupert, darling!’

He turned, wiped his hands on baggy trousers, and stared at us. ‘I wondered where you’d got to, Caroline.’

So he had been the man out riding with her. Had I seen him dismount, I would have recognised him.

Caroline said, ‘I had to come. I couldn’t face the Fotheringhams and their sherry after what I’ve just found out.’

So she was going to tell him. But at least he seemed remote here. With luck, the news of Runcie’s death would go no farther.

‘What’s the matter, Caroline?’ He came closer.

She half fell into his arms. ‘Oh Rupert, Rupert.’

He closed his eyes as he held her. It was time for me to go. The two of them were in a world of their own. Suddenly he opened his eyes, looked at me in surprise and across Miss Windham’s right shoulder said, ‘What has happened?’

‘I brought Miss Windham some bad news.’

She broke away from his embrace and said in a choked voice, ‘Everett is dead.’

‘No! No.’

As I walked away, he called, ‘Wait!’ Keeping an arm around Miss Windham, he came across to me. ‘Come inside. Please.’

I did not want to be cross-questioned, but he placed a friendly arm around me also, leaving me with the alternative of an undignified wriggle out of his grasp or acceptance of his invitation. The three of us walked together to the ramshackle house.

A boss-eyed housekeeper glared as we emerged into the shabby hallway from a dilapidated porch. Rupert Cromer left dusty white footprints on the tiles. He opened a door into a dimly lit parlour. The first thing that caught my eye was the bust that stood on a plinth in the corner of the room, lit by a shaft of sunlight. It was Caroline Windham.

I remembered it from his exhibition. It was the piece that had caused a stir, and allowed the connection of Caroline to the abstract nude. It was executed with great delicacy and subtlety. I looked from it to her, and back.

‘That’s beautiful, and such a good likeness.’

Cromer bowed and then kissed Caroline’s cheek. ‘Great things are possible with such a regal sitter.’ He said quietly, ‘Everett commissioned the bust’

She sank into a chair. ‘You can’t let anyone else take it, Rupert.’

‘I won’t.’

He glanced at the piece with admiration, which could have been for his own handiwork, or for his sitter.

Caroline said, ‘I’m staying the night, Rupert. Is that all right?’

‘I’ll have a bed made up.’

‘I don’t want to be at Somersgill tomorrow when they hear about Everett’s death, I couldn’t bear their pity.’

He knelt before her, put his arms around his waist and his head in her lap. ‘You’ve lost the love of your life. I’ve lost the best friend a man could have.’

I paid attention to a sketch pad pinned to an easel. It was covered in tiny drawings that may have been ideas for larger pieces of work. One was the sculptor himself, an odd little self-portrait of man and motorbike. Another was drawings from different angles of a Venus figure.

The strange thing about this figure was that it had Deirdre Fitzpatrick’s face. Or was I, like Sykes and Fitzpatrick, becoming obsessed with the woman?

I was about to turn away and slip from the room unnoticed, when Cromer came over to me. ‘I’m so sorry. It was kind of you to come.’

‘Not at all, but I’ll go now. Goodbye, Mr Cromer. Goodbye, Miss Windham. I’m very sorry.’

A moment later, I was walking back to my car.

My visit had not gone as intended. Had the same person who fired the shot that grazed Caroline Windham’s arm strangled Everett Runcie? It was possible. The perpetrator may have preferred a gun, but that would not be a very good method in a hotel, where there would be no excuse of accident if a bullet was matched.

There would be a list of shooters who were here on the estate on Monday 13th August. Where? And how would I get my hands on it?

Newly commissioned Special Constable Sykes felt a mounting excitement as he waited in the alley at the side of the Metropole, admiring the Clyno motorbike, checking its tyres. Hardly anyone walked up the alley on Sunday, when the hat shop and tobacconist that adjoined the hotel were closed. It was the perfect spot to wait for the signal to tail his quarry. Dapper Hartigan, Leeds Irish lad turned New Yorker, was probably still pomading his hair.

When he was in the force, Sykes had always