Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

‘The boy was more like his mother, then?’

‘He worshipped her. I felt so sorry for him. He tried to be brave ... to protect her, but he was no match for his father. Gerald was a very violent man ... once he threw an iron at Madelaine and Michael jumped in between them and got it full in the face. That’s how he got that mark, you know.’

Barnaby shook his head. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘But Katherine was all for her father. And he went off and left her without a backward glance. It would have damaged a weaker person for good and all but she ... well ... she was a chip off the old block all right. She didn’t seem much like him on the surface. He was flamboyant, always showing off ... she’d draw into herself more, but in their hearts they were a dead spit. Fiery tempers and a cast-iron will. And when he’d gone she turned all her attention to Michael. And he, poor boy, with his mother dead, clung to her in desperation. You’d never have thought he was the elder. She was mother, father, sister, everything to him. Sometimes I wondered what I was doing there at all except there had to be somebody while they were still under age.

‘Michael started painting when he was about fourteen. Seriously, I mean. He’d always been good at art at school and they kept on at him to go to college. He went for a bit then walked out. Said they were a load of rubbish. And Katherine encouraged him. Told him he’d be better off travelling round Europe, going to galleries, museums and suchlike. That’s what painters always did, she said. Anyway, that’s how things stood till just before Katherine was seventeen. Michael’d had his eighteenth birthday a couple of months before and that’s when the rows started. Adolescent rows as I saw it. Picking fault with each other all the time, every day a slanging match. She’d scream at him, he’d fling himself out of the house. And yet, Inspector’ - she leaned forward and her voice became very quiet - ‘all the time this was going on I felt there was something wrong. I could sense the undercurrent of their feelings for each other as strong as ever. The rows seemed ... forced somehow ... unnatural.

‘Then, one night, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for hours till at three o’clock I gave up and decided to go downstairs and make some tea. I was walking past Katherine’s door when I heard sounds ... little cries. I thought she was having a nightmare so I opened the door and ... looked in.’ Her face burned with the memory and she covered it with her hands. ‘I couldn’t stay after that. I gave the excuse to the Traces that the children - I still thought of them like that, you understand - were simply too much for me and I wanted to retire. My sister had died a few months before and left me this bungalow. My last couple of weeks at the cottage were as different again. No need to stage any more rows to put me off the scent. They didn’t bother to conceal how they felt. Didn’t even seem to think there was anything wrong. It was so natural for them, you see ... just an extension of their close feelings. They couldn’t understand why I had to leave. Why I wasn’t happy for them both. I did try once or twice considering the possibility of staying on ... they were still my babies in a way and I had promised their mother I’d look after them, but then one day Katherine started talking about their European tour. Oh they were going here ... they were going there ... I don’t know where they weren’t going. I asked then, “Who’s paying for all this?” And she said, “Henry, of course.” And Michael said, “Kate can get Henry to do anything.”

‘They were standing together at the time behind the kitchen table, arms around each other’s waists. And I suddenly realized how strong they were ... They fed off each other. You could almost see it ... energy flowing to and fro between them ... doubling ... doubling in strength. And I felt afraid. I thought, there’ll be no stopping them. Whatever they want ...

‘Someone sent me the paper with the inquest on Mrs Trace. It seemed an accident clear enough. But then there was the engagement and when I heard Miss Simpson had died I couldn’t help wondering ... Perhaps if I’d got in touch with the police the third death might not have happened. But I didn’t know , you see ... it was just a feeling. And how could I have betrayed them? I loved them, you see ... Madelaine’s children.’

There was a long pause. Miss Bellringer nodded gravely. ‘I begin to understand.’ She poured herself a little more whisky and continued, ‘But I still don’t see how Bella could have been killed by either of them.’

‘Neither did I at first. I read the report until I knew it by heart. And it tallied so perfectly with Phyllis Cadell’s confession that there seemed to be little reason to look further. And yet there was something about it that didn’t quite fit and it nagged at me for days before I realized what it was. Now, I’m not a sporting man but it seems to me that the place for a beater is ahead of the guns. So why were Michael Lacey and Mrs Trace together? Come to that what was he doing out there in the first place? He told me some story about earning money but this couldn’t have been further from the truth. He was there to peel Mrs Trace off from the rest of the party. To isolate her so that she became a very clear target indeed; a sitting duck, in other words. Katherine was in the undergrowth - don’t forget we only have her brother’s word for it that she was in the kitchen at Tye House - and at a prearranged time, no doubt with a certain amount of leeway on either side, the murder was committed.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Both the Laceys were experienced shots. Mrs Rainbird told me so. And of course with all the kerfuffle with the dogs and everyone racing about she just slipped quietly away through the trees. And Michael, all eagerness to help, went racing off to phone for an ambulance. And now comes the second thing that struck me as odd. Surely, in an emergency, you dash up the nearest driveway and bang on the door, but Lacey went to Tye House. Almost as far as you could get from the spot where the accident occurred. Why did he not go to the first house in Church Lane? Or Holly Cottage, which would have been even nearer? There can only be one reason. Because he wished to delay the ambulance as long as possible. The last thing they wanted was an efficient team on the spot in no time, perhaps saving Bella’s life.’

‘Yes ... I can see that it could well have been that way ...’ So enthralling had Miss Bellringer found Barnaby’s recital that she had frozen into attention with a square of plum cake halfway between her plate and her mouth. She now popped the cake in and continued, whilst munching, ‘But then ... why Phyllis?’

‘Well, not surprisingly, considering the terrible emotional pressure she was under, her lack of practice with a gun coupled with the vodka she’d consumed, Miss Cadell missed. By half a mile I shouldn’t wonder. But by one of those dreadful coincidences that sometimes happen and change our lives by doing so, Bella stumbled over a tree root as Phyllis fired. Lessiter mentioned at the inquest that Mrs Trace had already fallen once. There can be no other explanation.’

‘But ... if Dennis saw what happened he must have seen Bella get up again. After Phyllis ran away, I mean.’

‘I should imagine so. That’s something we shall find out when he’s fit to be questioned. But I wouldn’t put it past either of them to bleed someone white, knowing them to be innocent.’

‘How absolutely appalling.’ Miss Bellringer looked anxiously around her exuberant room as if testing it for pregnability. She bent down and picked up Wellington, holding him to her flat chest like a charm. Four resentful feet stuck stiffly out. ‘And Bella’s murder ... was this the first step in some grand design?’