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  CHANGE FOR THE WORSE

  Pollard & Toye Investigations

  Book Eleven

  Elizabeth Lemarchand

  TO CICELY CHICHESTER

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  ALSO IN THE POLLARD & TOYE INVESTIGATIONS SERIES

  Prologue

  David and Julian Strode sat over aperitifs in the Piazza del Duomo at Portrova, writing picture postcards to their small son and daughter in London. On examining the contents of his wallet David announced that they only had one stamp left.

  ‘I’ll go and find a tabacchi,’ he said, ‘and have a look round for somewhere to eat. Why not stay here in the shade? I suppose it’s too late to go and see the cathedral before the siesta shut-down?’

  ‘I don’t know that there’s an awful lot to see,’ Julian replied. ‘I looked it up in the guide book last night, and it says the nave was largely rebuilt in the eighteenth century and is highly ornate, which sounds ominous. How about my nipping across now while you’re getting stamps, and then we’ll know if it’s worth coming back later?’

  ‘O.K.,’ he agreed. ‘We’ll meet in the porch if you’re thrown out at twelve.’ He tipped the waiter and pocketed the rest of his change. ‘My God, it’s hot!’

  He departed. The waiter replaced the chair which he had deftly whisked away, and bowed and smiled at the signora inglese.

  ‘Very ’ot, signora,’ he agreed. ‘Molto caldo, oggi.’

  Julian’s Italian was minimal. She smiled back at him as she collected her belongings and gestured in the direction of the cathedral.

  ‘Il Duomo,’ she ventured.

  The waiter swelled visibly with local patriotism.

  ‘Bellissimo, signora! Stupendo!’

  She tied a silk scarf over her head and stepped out into the sun-baked piazza, a small slight figure with dark hair and expressive brown eyes. Heat rose up at her from the dusty ground. She walked slowly, revelling in high summer and the feeling of being on holiday. The Strodes had flown their car out to Milan and were heading in a leisurely way for Venice, stopping off to explore lesser-known places. Portrova had turned out to be an attractive small city as yet little spoilt by industrialization. The cathedral square was happily inaccessible to cars and a useful shortcut for pedestrians. As she strolled across it Julian saw that there were no longer many people about, as though life were running down to its suspension in the siesta. There was a sudden metallic rattle and crash as a shop lowered its shutters prematurely. The windows of upper storeys were already shuttered, giving the houses a withdrawn, even secretive appearance. She stepped aside to avoid two children in black pinafores absorbed in hitting each other with their school satchels, and paused to study the Romanesque west front of the cathedral.

  There was a fine rose window flanked by frescoes of haloed monastic figures, recently and not too skilfully restored. The porch was supported by slender pillars resting on the backs of marble lions, their aggressiveness subdued by the passage of centuries. Julian took off her sunglasses and went up a short flight of steps.

  As she paused to let her eyes adjust to comparative darkness her spine prickled. An unmistakeably human bundle was lying on the ground, partly propped against the door. It moved slightly and she relaxed. She had not after all come upon a corpse, with all the attendant complications of doing so in a foreign country. She looked down on an old woman with a shrivelled face, thin wisps of white hair, and a pair of sharp black eyes which were fixed upon her with the unwinking stare of a bird. The bundle-like effect was produced by layers of shapeless garments, and the remains of a pair of dusty black shoes were bound on with strips of rag. Slowly a thin dirty hand emerged and was silently held out.

  Discomfited by an immediate sense of guilt, Julian took a thousand lire note from her handbag. Fingers deformed by arthritis closed on it.

  ‘Che Dio la benedice, signora.’

  There was no beggar’s whine in the voice, even a touch of dignity. Feeling at a loss Julian gave a little bow and turned to enter the cathedral, aware that she was under close scrutiny.

  The interior was dark and felt chilly, and she threw a cardigan round her shoulders. An overpoweringly ornate high altar loomed in the distance behind a row of dim red lamps suspended from the roof, and there was a vast organ. Priests and worshippers were completely absent, and this contributed to the depressing atmosphere of the building. Remembering that she had very little time Julian walked up the south aisle, peering into one side-chapel after another but discovering nothing that seemed of much interest. She stopped at the entrance to the choir which looked more promising, and glanced round in the hope of seeing a slot machine that would provide a short period of electric lighting in exchange for a hundred lire coin.

  ‘Si chiude! Si chiude!’

  An eerie sound suddenly echoed through the cathedral, swirling upwards to the roof. Startled, and for a moment completely baffled, Julian stood motionless. Then the slamming of a door down at the west end and the unmistakable turning of a key in a lock sent her running full tilt down the long nave.

  ‘Wait! Wait!’ she shouted urgently, groping for the Italian word. ‘Turista inglese!’

  Her voice was abruptly drowned in the clamour of the cathedral clock striking the four quarters and the twelve strokes of the hour. It was obvious that nobody could possibly hear either her cries or her pounding on the inside of the door. She paused for breath and to let the noise subside, and in the same moment was aware of someone just behind her. Before she could swing round her cardigan was whipped over her head and a strong hand pressed over her mouth.

  She struggled frantically as she was dragged away from the door, but realised that she had been attacked by two people. The sleeves of her cardigan were knotted at the back of her neck, her hands tied behind her with her scarf and her ankles secured. Then she was hoisted up and carried further into the cathedral. Sick with terror and convinced that she was being kidnapped, she pleaded with her captors, repeating ‘Inglese, inglese’, through the muffling folds of her cardigan. Their chilling silence heightened her panic. Her heart was pounding so violently that she felt it must soon burst. Her mind began to behave strangely, her normal life with David and the children receding from her like a picture being borne away. The only reality was here and now, with its incredibility and hideous possibilities.

  She was unceremoniously dumped on a hard surface, and for a moment sensed a wordless exchange in progress. Then followed sounds of stealthy withdrawal. She lay faint with apprehension until a loud noise of wood being smashed and splintered roused her. She caught her breath and waited. The noise was repeated from a little further away, and still more remote sounds became audible which she could not interpret. Now, she thought, they’ll come back and get me. Take me out by a side door somewhere to a car they’ve got waiting... Tears ran down her cheeks as she pictured David perhaps only a few yards away, wondering where she had gone...

  No one came. Absolute silence had descended. For the first time Julian realised how acutely uncomfortable she was, and tried to shift her position. She was wearing sandals, and as she moved her toes encountered something smooth and yielding. She explored its surface gingerly, and to her amazement identified her handbag.

  The physical contact with a familiar object acted on her incoherent thinking like a catalyst. They had not raped, abducted or even robbed her. And she was certain that somehow they had got out of the cathedral and go
ne... They must simply have wanted to prevent her from seeing what they were doing ... a robbery, from the sound of it...

  There was sudden rattling and shouting at the west door. Although the chances of whoever was outside hearing her were negligible, she shouted as loudly as she could. The rattling stopped. It must be David, she told herself. Surely he’d somehow got an idea that she was inside, and now would get hold of somebody who understood English?

  Unbelievably the chimes of the first quarter broke out overhead. Could it all really have happened in only quarter of an hour? She waited tensely with her ears strained for the slightest sound, dealing resolutely with small recurring tremors of fear. There was an apparently timeless interval.

  Suddenly a lot of things happened at once. A key grated in a lock, there were hurried footsteps and David’s voice, sharp with anxiety, was calling her.

  ‘Here! I’m here!’ she called, heaving herself on to her side to attract his attention. As she bumped down a step he fielded her.

  ‘Mamma mia!’ bellowed a powerful Italian throat.

  ‘And all the chaps nicked was the loose cash in the alms boxes they busted open?’ Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Pollard asked, reclining at ease in one of the Strodes’ armchairs, his hands clasped behind his head.

  He and his wife Jane, near neighbours and close friends, had come round to drinks the evening after the Strodes’ return from Italy.

  ‘So the cathedral people said,’ David Strode replied. ‘The padre who produced the key told me that all the plate was kept in a safe in the sacristy. All the same, there was quite a lot of stuff around. Candlesticks, for instance, and a cross on the high altar with some valuable stones set in it. Easy enough to prise out, you’d think.’

  ‘Given time,’ Jane Pollard remarked. ‘Obviously they’d banked on a couple of hours at least. It was Julian turning up that dished everything.’

  ‘How did they get out?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘Through a small door at the east end. It had a mortice lock, but the sacristan Johnny was in the habit of leaving the key in it during the siesta closing, apparently. I gathered that he was going to be for it in a big way.’

  ‘I couldn’t help being sorry for him,’ Julian said. ‘He looked like a hunted rabbit, and the priest was about six foot six and broad to match, and roared at him like a mad bull.’

  ‘Sorry my foot,’ David retorted, getting up to refill their glasses. ‘He damn well deserved anything he got, the lazy little bastard. If he’d done his job properly you wouldn’t have got shut in in the first place.’

  ‘There’s a bit of this enthralling story missing,’ Jane pointed out. ‘David, how did you know Julian was shut in, especially when she didn’t answer when you banged on the door?’

  ‘My old woman,’ Julian put in. ‘It was one of those cases of casting bread on the waters, etc.’

  ‘Well, I was a bit longer than I expected getting stamps and finding a place for lunch. It was about ten past twelve when I got to the porch and found Julian wasn’t there. I thought she must have gone back to the cafe, and was just making for it when an old woman bobbed up and launched a volley of Italian at me which I couldn’t follow. She kept pointing at the cathedral door and I managed to make out ‘signora inglese,’ and tried to get in, but couldn’t. Then the old girl gesticulated madly and finally grabbed my arm and led me to an official-looking house, and rang the doorbell. The outsize cleric Julian was talking about answered it, listened to her, and by amazing luck turned out to speak quite good English. He produced a key on the same scale as himself and came over with me.’

  ‘But how odd that if the old woman knew Julian was inside, she’d let the sacristan lock her in.’

  ‘Probably he wouldn’t have listened to her. She obviously wasn’t persona grata with the cathedral people. I expect they didn’t care for begging on their doorstep, possibly at the expense of their collections.’

  ‘Anyway, she won’t need to beg for quite some time,’ Julian said. ‘We saw to that before we left.’

  The conversation moved on to details of police activities after Julian’s release. The Strodes had been asked to stay at Portrova overnight, and to leave their addresses both in Venice and London. But they had heard nothing further. At the time they got the impression that the police suspected certain local unemployed.

  ‘Of course the detailed knowledge of the cathedral’s layout and routine points to locals,’ David added.

  Pollard, who had been unusually silent, turned to Julian. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘did the chaps smell?’

  She looked surprised. ‘Smell of what, Tom?’

  ‘Well, unwashed humanity. Or cheap foreign cigarettes or booze or petrol. Anything.’

  ‘I don’t remember noticing that they did. But my cardigan was over my face, and now you mention it I remember its clean woolly smell. I’d washed it before we came away.’

  ‘But one of them had his hand over your mouth and nose, you said.’

  ‘Yes, he did at first, till they got me away from the door. But I don’t remember noticing that it smelt of anything special, though.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Pollard commented.

  Chapter 1

  Katharine Ridley slammed the car door and sank into the passenger seat with a gasp.

  ‘Never,’ she said emphatically, ‘never never blurt out a mad idea that comes into your head in a committee meeting. Look what I’ve landed us with. I really am sorry, Francis.’

  Francis Peck, Warden of Fairlynch Manor, a Heritage of Britain property, gave her an amused glance as he let in the clutch.

  ‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘If other HOB places can make a success of exhibitions, why not us? Look how well Earlingford did with that Victorian children affair. Their admissions simply shot up last year.’

  ‘Oh, I know. I’m just having an attack of guilt and cold feet at the thought of all the wear and tear ahead. But even at this moment I can see that it could be enormous fun. Anyway, calling it “Pictures for Pleasure” is an inspiration, don’t you think? Not too highbrow, and subtly flattering to lenders and patrons. And we can put in more or less anything we like.’

  Two years earlier, after agonizing deliberation, John and Katharine Ridley had made over Fairlynch Manor and its well-known gardens to the Heritage of Britain Council. Within a month of the final transfer, John Ridley, an apparently robust sixty-five, had had a fatal coronary. With her world fallen about her ears Katharine had carried out the plans they had made for their old age. The lodge of the Manor and a manageable area of garden had not been included in the deed of gift, and as soon as the necessary alterations had been made to the little house, she moved in with her orphan granddaughter Alix Parr. And being a realistic if impulsive woman, she schooled herself resolutely to keep clear of the new management and refrain from anything that could possibly be construed as interference.

  A situation swiftly developed which she had never visualized. She found herself on effortlessly easy terms with Francis Peck, the newly-appointed Warden, a dedicated conservationist, absorbed in his job and quick to realize the value of her detailed knowledge of the Manor and its gardens. Her relationship with his wife Hilary was equally happy, and for the first time since John’s death it seemed that life could once again have a measure of form and purpose. Her only disappointment had been the inevitable delay in opening the Manor itself to the public. The gardens had always been the priority, and with rising costs the attractive Regency house had suffered. Much needed doing to it in the way of repairs and redecoration, and a self-contained flat had to be made for the Warden.

  ‘Well anyway,’ Francis Peck said as they waited at traffic lights, ‘this means we’ll have to push on a bit with the house to be able to have the library ready for this affair by April. You’ll feel we’re moving at last, won’t you?’

  ‘I know I’m maddeningly impatient,’ Katharine admitted, ‘and you’re so long-suffering when I try to hustle. But look, getting the library finished won’t delay
work on the house as a whole, will it? That would be a disaster.’

  She turned and looked at him anxiously. Her alert face was heart-shaped with high cheekbones, bright blue eyes and a small beaky nose. At sixty she looked younger, with hardly a wrinkle and only a powdering of grey in her crisp hair. Quick in movement, she was full of vitality.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Francis Peck replied, characteristically quiet and deliberate. ‘I don’t see that it need. The library and hall must jump the queue, but as we shan’t admit people to the rest of the house, work can go on there all through the summer, and on the semi-outside jobs like putting in the new boiler.’

  As they left Wellchester behind and headed westwards, they went on discussing plans for the projected exhibition of paintings. At the Area Committee it had been agreed to keep this as far as possible on a basis of local ownership, asking people to loan pictures from their homes which they enjoyed looking at. A further suggestion had been to offer limited hanging space to the Wellchester Art Club, offering exhibitors facilities for selling their work.

  ‘The really vital thing is to get Hugh Rossiter to help,’ Katharine said. ‘It’s luck having an artist of his standing in the village. And through his art shop in Wellchester he must be well up on who can paint in the Club, and who round here owns what and might be persuaded to lend it. I hope to heaven he isn’t going off on a painting trip just now.’

  ‘Isn’t he President of the WAC?’ Francis Peck asked. ‘He might get them to lend us canvas screens for free. There isn’t all that amount of hanging space in the library.’

  As they talked, a bend in the road brought the village of Spireford in sight, its houses strung out along a terrace above the river Spire, here making its way northwards in leisurely silver sweeps. Fairlynch Manor stood on a southwest facing hillside just beyond the village, in a woodland setting which on this sunny November morning was a mosaic of copper, gold and bronze, interspersed here and there with the emphatic dark greens of conifers. At the sight of the low white house Katharine felt a now familiar pang. She had come to it as a bride, and in it the pattern of her life had unfolded through nearly forty years. And there, just below the lowest terrace of the garden, on the path leading down to the road and the water meadow, she had found John lying on that autumn morning...