Roots of Evil(40)

‘Monday afternoon would fit,’ said Francesca, thinking back. ‘I didn’t actually miss Trixie until Tuesday night. I had a parents’ evening on Monday, and some of us went out for supper afterwards. I got back quite late and went straight to bed. Mornings can be a bit of a scramble, so it was Tuesday evening before I realized properly that she wasn’t around.’

‘Would she have gone out to Ashwood without telling you?’

‘There was no particular reason for her to tell me. I’m only a sort of lodger. She’d probably have talked about it afterwards though, because she liked talking about her thesis, and she’d have been pleased with herself for getting into the studios.’ This sounded rather nastily critical of Trixie, so Fran said, ‘But we’re midway between East Barnet and Enfield, so it’s not far.’

‘Edmund Fane said he left her at the studios at about five,’ said Michael. ‘She wanted to prowl around a bit and draw some plans of the layout, so he left her to it. Fane says he drove home and as far as he recalls, got back about half past seven.’

For some reason – perhaps something in Michael’s voice – Francesca did not much like the sound of Edmund Fane. She said, ‘Why did he have to go all the way there? Couldn’t Trixie go on her own?’

Michael considered and then said, ‘Yes, I think she could have done, but Fane is very meticulous and a bit fussy. He probably thought it was the correct thing to do. Or maybe he was asked to go along to verify your friend’s genuineness. Solicitor to solicitor, or something.’

‘Oh, I see. That doesn’t give us any leads though, does it?’ said Francesca. ‘Unless Trixie crashed her car driving back.’

‘A crashed car would have been found and reported by now, I should think.’

‘But if it happened on a lonely stretch of road—’

‘Nowhere’s that lonely these days.’

But Francesca had a sudden vivid image of Trixie lying dead in a ditch somewhere, being rained on and investigated by weasels, and because this was not an image she wanted to get stuck with, she said firmly, ‘What I think I’d better do is get in touch with this Ashwood solicitor.’

‘All right. Fane gave me his number. His name’s Liam Devlin. D’you want to borrow my phone?’



Liam Devlin, reached by Michael’s phone, said he would be perfectly happy to meet Miss – Mrs? – Holland at Ashwood. Yes, he would bring the keys out later today if she wanted, although she had better come clad as if for tempest, fire and flood, on account of the entire Ashwood site sinking into a mire after days of rain.

Francesca promised to arrive suitably garbed, hung up, and accepted Michael’s offer of a quick wash-and-brush-up in the rather antiquated cloakroom off the hall. She was a bit tousled and pale from the long journey, and her mouth looked too wide for her face in the way it always did when she was tired or anxious. She brushed her hair, which she had had cut very short after leaving Marcus – it made her look like Joan of Arc after a night on the tiles, but it had represented a very satisfactory two-finger gesture to his simpering blonde and her gleaming shoulder-length hair – and went back to the kitchen to thank Michael for his help.

It was infuriating, having got all the polite thank-yous and interesting-to-have-met-yous, and all the conventional safe-journey farewells out of the way, to encounter a completely unresponsive engine when she turned on the ignition. Absolutely dead. Not a spark.

Fran swore and tried it again, and this time a faint, slightly sinister, smell of petrol came into the car’s interior. Petrol-flooded or waterlogged or something. Third time lucky? She turned the key again, and this time, in addition to the ominous silence, the warning light for over-heating the engine glowed balefully at her from the dashboard. Hell’s teeth. Now there was nothing for it but to go back into the house and find the number of a local garage. The trouble was that it was Friday afternoon and the odds were that no one would be able to come out until tomorrow at the earliest. Which meant she would have to phone Liam Devlin and put off their meeting at Ashwood, and that, in turn, would most likely mean Monday morning before she could get into the place. Bloody, bloody internal combustion engine!

A shaft of light showed from the open door of the house, and Michael’s voice said, ‘It looks as if you’d better come back inside, doesn’t it?’

‘Wretched thing,’ said Fran crossly. ‘I don’t suppose you’d know how to fix it?’

‘You suppose right. What time were you meeting Liam Devlin?’

‘Six o’clock.’

He looked at the car, and Francesca had the sudden impression that he was holding a brief, silent argument with himself. But he only said, ‘You do the damsel in distress role very thoroughly, don’t you?’

‘I didn’t mean to get stranded,’ said Francesca, and heard with annoyance the note of apology in her voice that had always infuriated Marcus.

‘I’m going back to London this afternoon,’ said Michael. ‘So I could drive you to Ashwood – at least, I could if you know the way. And I could wait for you while you take a look round, and then drop you at your house afterwards.’

So this was what the inner argument had been about. His sense of chivalry had been nudging him to make the offer but he had not really wanted to do it, so he had been trying to think of a polite way out. Perfectly understandable. Francesca said, very firmly, ‘Certainly not. I couldn’t possibly put you to so much trouble. I can easily phone Liam Devlin and arrange another meeting.’