Quick off the Mark Page 3

  My heart was bruised by the news she’d brought. I’d known Dimsie and Tristan for most of my life. Their mother, the fearsome Dorcas Huber-Drayton, was a good friend and contemporary of my own parents, Edred and Mary Quick. When we were about eight years old, I asked Dimsie where her father was and – obviously coached by her mother – she said he was circumnavigating the globe, which I thought sounded very grand and mysterious. It wasn’t until I was fifteen or so that it occurred to me that he was taking a heck of a long time about it. In fact, I’d never heard another word about him.

  My father calls the Huber-Draytons ‘the People of the Mislaid Spouses’. Like Tristan, Dimsie had been married – or so she said – but there were no marital encumbrances hanging round either of them. Nor any offspring. Nor had any of us been invited to attend either wedding. The siblings were very close, in age, in outlook and in ambition, not to mention hearts, and I knew Dimsie would find the loss of her brother a terrible blow. She travelled through life on a series of roller coaster ups and downs, a gifted manic-depressive – or bipolar, as it’s now called – since childhood. Luckily her depressive stages had been short-lived and her manic ones benign. So far, at least. But I could easily imagine her trying to avenge her brother. And succeeding.

  Tristan was tall and strapping, unlike his tiny fawn-like sister. Despite his distinguished school career – prizes for classical studies, prizes for history, prizes for French and Spanish, top marks in the public exams for Russian, cricket captain – he had wanted to go to art school but was dissuaded by a battery of military Huber-Drayton uncles (‘never earn a decent whack out of painting pretty pictures, boy’) and the fact that his mother, Dorcas, had no money for fees. I know he was bitter about it. By the time he was twenty, he had done nothing in particular: odd jobs here and there, a stint with an architectural firm, a short course in EFL (which he hated).

  ‘I don’t want to go into the Army,’ he told me once. ‘But my mother can’t afford to subsidize me – nor would I expect her to. I had a privileged education, I know that, but it was mainly because the uncles didn’t want a Huber-Drayton attending a comprehensive.’

  Eventually, to placate them, he signed on with some elite regiment, reached an impressive rank or other, was posted to various danger-spots and then two or three years later, resigned.

  On his twenty-seventh birthday, he took me out for dinner. The next morning, he inexplicably vanished without saying a word to anyone. Just up and left with little more than a toothbrush, a passport and a clean pair of knickers – and about the latter I’m only guessing. Where did he go? What did he do? He’d never talked about it, though he did once tell me that he’d gone through some life-changing experiences. That was all he ever said.

  ‘I think he’s finding himself,’ Dimsie told me once, thereby conjuring up images of gurus in saffron robes, begging bowls, wailing sitars. We all assumed he had been killed. Until he returned one day, two years or so later, looking much the same as when he disappeared. Leaner, perhaps, and harder, with a scar extending from his right temple down to his jaw. I never knew if he’d found himself, or someone else altogether. After reverting to his first love, art, he took a diploma course at the RCA, then set up a highly successful business with his sister, both keeping their independence as separate companies, but usually working alongside each other: Huber Associates and The Dimsie Drayton Studios. There was a pleasing piquancy between his athletic physique, his Army career and his somewhat effete (come on, be honest) occupation, which sometimes took him away from home for weeks at a time.

  Although at first sight, nothing could seem more unlikely, Dimsie was in fact a clone of her terrifying mother. Despite the golden hair and the big violet eyes, she possessed a business brain like a steel trap, with a soul to match. Hence her huge success in the interior design world. Her car alone must have set her back a cool £75,000 and counting. Equally, Tristan was constantly in demand all over Europe, particularly in the Gulf States and, surprisingly, in France. The former were looking for the Stately Home look, which always seemed odd to me, given the whole architectural and interior design ethos of the region, white founts falling in the courts of the sun, black shadows shed on alabaster tiles, minarets and domes and all that, while the latter wanted country chateaux or their apartements in the best quartiers done up in le style anglais. Lucrative on either count. Given my artistic credentials, even I had sometimes been roped in to work for them under the banner of Artistic Director. And a very useful source of extra income it was.

  My brain whirred. Why anyone would want to torture someone like Tristan I couldn’t imagine. Let alone kill him. What could they possibly have against him? What information did he possess that they wanted? Or was it a case of a jealous competitor, a disgruntled employee given the sack for whatever reason, a client who didn’t like the way he had redecorated their home? Or was it something further back in his life: the Army, or those two missing years. All highly unlikely, in my opinion. I concentrated on not thinking about it until I knew more.

  I pressed a number into my phone. ‘Hey, Fliss,’ I said, when the phone was answered. ‘Quick here.’

  ‘I know why you’re calling,’ Fliss said. ‘It’s about that body in Honeypot Lane, isn’t it?’

  ‘What are you, psychic or something?’

  ‘No. I just know you and your Pinocchio nose.’

  ‘Are you saying I’ve got a long nose?’

  ‘Perhaps I mean Cyrano de Bergerac, not Pinocchio … or am I thinking of Gérard Depardieu?’

  ‘Fliss, I have no idea what the hell you’re thinking about.’

  ‘OK, Quick, how can I help?’

  Detective Chief Inspector Felicity Fairlight was one of my best mates, and had been a close colleague before I resigned from the force after my husband had left me to live with his long-term mistress. ‘Tell me where the police are up to on this murder … it is murder, isn’t it?’

  ‘I should say so. The guy was cut to ribbons with a knife, joints broken, johnson sliced off by some bloodthirsty maniac. Then his body dumped in a field. Been there two or three days at least.’

  ‘In this heat …’ I murmured.

  ‘Precisely. His wallet was left untouched in a back pocket of his trousers, so no problem identifying him. Said wallet stuffed with cash, just to inform interested parties like us that this wasn’t a vicious mugging for money, but something much more.’

  ‘Bizarre.’

  ‘Murder’s always bizarre. One way or another. You of all people should know that, Quick.’

  And of course I did.

  She coughed. ‘And Quick …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He wasn’t dead when he was dumped.’

  Oh, Tristan … ‘Crap,’ I said. We were both silent, thinking that one through. Finally, I said, ‘What was the actual cause of death?’

  ‘Basically, he bled out. Plus his heart gave way, I think. Some of the wounds should have been fatal. He must have been a pretty tough cookie to have lasted as long as our guys say he did.’

  ‘Double crap. And no idea who could have wanted him dead?’

  ‘Not a clue. Other than what we can get from the sister and the mother, we don’t know anything about the man, apart from his client list. Not yet, anyway.’ She filled in some more detail, most of which I really didn’t want to hear.

  ‘He was a good friend,’ I said, voice wobbling a little. ‘Him and h-his sister. W-we grew up together.’

  ‘So this is a bit of a blow.’

  ‘You could say that. Except that it’s more than a “bit”. I loved him. Most people did. He was lovable.’

  ‘Any offspring?’ Fliss herself was resolutely gay, with absolutely no ambitions to be a parent.

  ‘None that I ever heard of. He was married at one point,’ I said. ‘They split up maybe four or five years ago. His sister can tell you more.’

  ‘Thanks, Quick. In case they haven’t already found that out, I’ll pass it on.’

  ‘Aren’t yo
u in charge on this one?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. I got in after the body had been called in yesterday morning, so someone else got the job.’

  I groaned. ‘Please don’t tell me it’s Alan Garside again.’ Inspector Garside and I went back several years, all of them acrimonious. Added to which, he’d been best mates with Jack the Love Rat, my former husband.

  ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘You will keep me up to speed, won’t you?’ I said. ‘Like I said, I’ve known Tristan most of my life. My parents will be devastated at this news. I’ll have to drive over to offer aid and comfort.’

  Just as I was about to end the call, Fliss said, ‘Quick …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your ears only … he had a word carved across his chest.’

  ‘What word?’

  ‘Cheat.’

  THREE

  Drowning in misery during the days after I was sent home from hospital following my miscarriage, I had found myself obsessively walking. Round the town, along the towpath, across the business school campus, down narrow streets I had never noticed before. One morning of aimless wandering, I’d found myself at the top of Honeypot Lane, the rural road where Tristan’s body had been found. Fields on one side, woods on the other.

  Now, I parked my car and walked slowly down the incline towards where I knew the Major lived. As I went, my eye followed the line of the hedge where what was left of poor Tristan had been dumped. As far as could be calculated – so Fliss had told me – his corpse had lain there in the blazing heat for two or three days, unnoticed by any passers-by, concealed from the road by the hawthorn hedge bounding the field, plus rough grass and thick overhangs of hazel growth and elder. The flat plates of white elder blossom of spring and early summer had given way by now to hard bunches of green berries turning dark purple. My mother liked to make a lethal elderberry wine called Mary’s Malbec, bottles of which were left for three years in their cellar before drinking. They shared a shelf with the remaining bottles of their potato vodka, the rest having exploded.

  I went through the gate and walked along the edge of the plough on the other side of the hedge, parallel to the road. From here, it was fairly obvious where the body had been found, since there was still a flutter of police tape hanging from the bushes, plus a marked car parked opposite the site, although currently there was no one sitting inside. A few gawpers had gathered, and further down, a couple of inquisitive cows leaned over a gate.

  I knew that Major Horrocks lived in one of the only houses along the lane, two conjoined brick-and-flint cottages, with slate roofs and gingerbread eaves. As I walked back up the lane, emerging from one of them was a man with a dog on a red lead. A sign saying Rattrays was fixed to the gate. I quickened my pace.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I called.

  The dog walker turned. He touched his hand to his forehead in an old-fashioned gesture.

  ‘Major Horrocks?’ I held out my hand. ‘We have met. My name’s Quick … Alexandra Quick.’

  ‘Of course it is, my dear.’ He was a tall man, with an erect carriage and a solid body. Despite his age, a good man to have around if trouble broke out, I would suspect. ‘I remember you well.’

  ‘You’re the one who found poor Tristan Huber – his body, that is.’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know him at all, but everything I’ve heard since points to him having been a good sort of chap. What a way to go, really doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘You’re obviously walking your dog,’ I said, indicating the tiny hairy animal which danced and jittered on the end of its lead. ‘I’ll walk with you.’

  ‘He’s not exactly mine.’ The Major made a face. ‘Though I suppose he is now … used to belong to my neighbour but I’ve had to take possession.’

  ‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to talk me through exactly how you came across the body.’

  He stopped. ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’

  ‘Tristan Huber and his sister, Dimsie Drayton, have always been close friends,’ I said. ‘Dimsie is well aware that the police are doing everything they can. But she has also asked me to look into things, where possible, if only to collect the kind of detail the police might not bother to pass on to her. So I’d really like to see the site.’ Although I’d just looked at it, roping in an on-the-spot witness is always a good scheme. ‘And to hear anything else you’d care to tell me,’ I added.

  ‘No objections on my side.’ We walked on until the Major stopped again. ‘It was right behind that stretch of hedge,’ he said. ‘I let the dog, Marlowe, off his lead and leaned on that gate, as one does in the country, to survey the terrain, breathe in that good old country air, and then realized it wasn’t all that good, if you know what I mean. At the same time, young Marlowe here was in the field and had started going barmy, barking and whining, and when I leaned forward to see what was upsetting him, looked along the hedge …’ He indicated the prickly length of hawthorn which separated the field from the road, ‘… I could see what was obviously a body lying there … seen enough of those in my time, I can tell you.’

  ‘What did the corpse look like?’

  ‘It was bare-chested, trousers pulled down so you could see that he’d been …’ The Major shuffled a bit, ‘… emasculated. Cuts all over the body, word carved on the chest … it really doesn’t bear thinking about. Haven’t felt the same about walking Marlowe down here since. Used to be nice, but looks like a war zone now.’

  The grass along the hedge was crushed, the undergrowth trampled flat, thanks to the emergency services. It was horribly easy to see how Tristan’s body had lain hidden for several days from passing cars and probably even from the occasional joggers for several days.

  ‘Apart from myself, very few people walk along here,’ the Major explained, as though following my thought processes. ‘And as it happens, I’d gone away for five days, to stay with my son and his family – took the dog with me – or the … uh … body might have been found sooner.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t have heard or seen anything?’

  ‘’fraid not.’

  My throat was thick with grief. Tristan had still been alive when he was dumped here like a sack of garbage. Still alive … desperately hurt, hoping, praying someone would help him, knowing both mother and sister, not to mention me, were so near. If someone had come across him sooner, he might have been saved. Even with the loss of blood. Even with the mutilation. I couldn’t bear to think of his final moments, hoped he’d been unconscious by then.

  The Major coughed. ‘This may sound disrespectful, but it was Marlowe here who really did the finding. What a bastard the chap responsible must be, eh? Excuse my French. Do we even know if the police have produced a time of death?’

  ‘They said that despite his wounds, he wasn’t dead when he was thrown down behind that hedge.’ I made a choking sound, somewhere between sorrow and rage. How frail the human body is, I thought. How susceptible to violence and disease. How easily dispatched.

  ‘Bastard!’ the Major repeated. He yanked at the dog’s leash. ‘Come along, sir. Chop, chop.’ He looked at me sideways, and I sensed he was trying to do something to lighten my mood. ‘All Nell Roscoe’s dogs have had these preposterous names, d’you see? Still, Marlowe is far better than her last one.’

  ‘What was he called?’ I asked.

  ‘Called it Dashiell, if you please. Dashiell … I ask you.’

  ‘She was a detective fiction buff, then.’

  ‘I’ll say.’ He turned back towards his house. Looked at his watch. Said, ‘Could I tempt you in for a cup of coffee? Or tea?’

  Why not? I thought. Nothing now can come to any good … ‘That would be kind of you.’

  The Major’s cottage was neat, and surprisingly cosy for a single man, a military one at that. Evidence of time spent in the Far East was everywhere. Brass-topped tables, fretted mirrors, copper bowls, all highly-polished. Horse-brasses winked above a blackened oak mantel. Oriental vases stood he
re and there, or did service as the bases for lamps. He bustled about in the kitchen, while I did a swift inquisitive prowl of his sitting room, looking at the photographs displayed on most surfaces. Family groups. Ancient relatives from bygone eras. A couple of teenagers, one boy, one girl, the Major standing proudly behind with his hands on their shoulder. The same children, now grown up, on their various wedding days. An exotic-looking female in a fringed shawl, displaying rather more bosom than was advisable. Several of the Major in different ranks of military uniform, or uneasily holding babies. Another of him in a white judogi with a black belt.

  I had picked one up which showed an elderly woman with her arm round a pale-faced younger one, when the Major brought in a tray with tea things. There were biscuits on a willow-patterned plate, and milk in a one-handled jug embossed with silver filigree over painted china flowers. He nodded at the photo in my hand.

  ‘That’s my neighbour,’ he said. ‘Nell Roscoe. My former neighbour, I should say. With her niece, Lilian Harkness. There’s a very tragic story there.’

  ‘What was that – if you don’t mind telling me?’ It was a good idea for me to remember that Dimsie’s (or Tristan’s) was not the only tragedy.

  The Major poured milk and added tea. ‘Try these biscuits,’ he said, handing me a plate. ‘Made them myself.’

  I took one. ‘Delicious!’ I took another one.

  ‘I enjoy cooking. Didn’t have much choice really. It was that, or starve to death, my poor wife being a bit lacking in the culinary arts department.’

  ‘Like my mother,’ I said. ‘And why do you have your neighbour’s picture on your mantelpiece?’

  ‘Least I could do, really. Poor old girl finally succumbed to years of – not to put too fine a point on it – gin and crime novels. Not,’ he added, staring nervously around, as though Val McDermid or Lee Child might lurking behind the sofa, ‘that crime novels are necessarily likely to cause death. Anyway, I got a letter from some solicitor chappie a few days after her death, informing me that, if you can believe it, she’d left me her house – that’s Metcalfe, the cottage next door – and all its contents. On condition I gave Marlowe a good home. Could have knocked me down with a feather, as they say.’