Part 41 (1/2)
”I'll call if I see him,” John said. ”Goodbye.”
Elizabeth made no mention of the call. She stared through the winds.h.i.+eld lost in a world of her own. He drove out to rejoin the lane once more. His hand went automatically to the light stalk. A cloud nearer to purple than black had loomed over the horizon to kill the sun, prematurely curtailing the once bright summer evening. They drove down the lane to be swallowed by shadow.
2.
”Dad, stop!”
Short of running Miranda Bloom down he had to stop. She'd stood in the road to wave them down.
Now she came up to the driver's door, her dark eyes doom laden.
”I need to get to the hospital to see Paul,” she said quickly. ”But the buses don't seem to be running.”
”I'm sorry, I'm not going straight to the hospital tonight.” A white lie. He wasn't going at all.
”Please. I want to see Paul. I've been going out of my mind with worry ever since I heard.”
”Dad, take her,” Elizabeth pleaded. ”Let her see Paul.”
”All right.” He opened the rear door for her, then moved the dog to the farside of the rear seat so she could climb in. ”Hang on. We're in a hurry.”
He'd only gone about a hundred yards or so when he pa.s.sed Robert Gregory in the car. Stan Price sat in the pa.s.senger seat. Neither noticed John.
That's quick, John told himself. At least that was one less thing for him to worry about. Robert Gregory had found Stan. The old gent couldn't have wandered far, after all.
As he drove he glanced in the rearview mirror. Now that was odd. In fact, it didn't make any sense at all. Robert Gregory's indicator lights were flas.h.i.+ng. But the wrong ones.
Instead of turning left to drive home to Ezy View in the village, he'd turned right onto a dirt track. And as far as John knew the track led up alongside the cemetery. Nowhere else.
The time approached 9:15. The gloom deepened enough to activate streetlights.
So what on Earth was Robert playing at? Why was he driving the old man up to the Necropolis?
John shook his head. Luckily that's one mystery he didn't have to solve. Hitting the gas, he accelerated away from Skelbrooke and the glowering mound of the Necropolis.
3.
Robert Gregory panted with fear and excitement. No mistakes this time. The dashboard clock read 9:19. As if on cue, dusk drew a veil over the face of the cemetery.
He stopped the car at a gap in the railings. In a separate compartment of his mind he rehea.r.s.ed the story he would tell the police. At the same time he leaned across the old man to open the pa.s.senger door.
Stan's face bled pure bewilderment. Dementia had him in its iron grip again.
”Why are we here?” he muttered. ”It's so dark.”
”You wanted to see Harry, Dad.” Robert smiled. ”He's here.”
”Harry?”
”Sure.”
”Harry? But Ia” Confusion quivered in his eyes. ”Ia someone told me Harry had dieda I remember a funeral.”
”Now, Dad. What kind of ridiculous talk is that?”
”But it's been so long since I've seen Harry.”
”I know it. That's why I've brought you here to see him. He's up there on the hill waiting for you.” As Robert helped the old man out of the car he could see doubt seesawing with hope in his expression. ”Harry's come a long way, Dad. You don't want to miss him.”
”No, I don't, do I?”
With that little shuffling step of his Stan Price pa.s.sed through the gap in the fence into the graveyard.
Robert Gregory waited a few moments. Then he followed.
4.
”Dad, what are you doing?” Elizabeth had to hang onto her seatbelt as John U-turned the car with a screech of tires on hot tar. In the back the dog slipped sideward, too, to go sprawling over Miranda's lap.
John's voice was tight. ”I need to check on something.”
Miranda leaned forward. ”Mr. Newton, aren't you going to take me to see, Paul?”
”It won't take a couple of minutes.”
This is crazy, he told himself. You need to put as many miles as possible between Elizabeth and Skelbrooke. You're no knight in s.h.i.+ning armor. But guilt would gnaw him to the bone because he knew what was going to happen to old Stan Price. It made perfect sense now. Robert Gregory had made that telephone call to John for Cynthia Gregory's benefit, pretending concern that Stan had wandered away from home again. That was all part of the alibi. Robert, no doubt, had already left Stan someway from the house in a place where he could easily find him. Then he'd told Cynthia he'd go look for him. Moments later he'd collected Stan, now he was driving him to the cemetery. And, G.o.d knows, the Necropolis is a lethal place after dark.
All the clues were there. Gregory planned Stan's death. The police would hear a verifiable story of an old man lost in his own world of dementia, who would wander away from the house. Only one evening he wandered away to meet with a fatal accident. And, hey presto, Robert not only gets away with murder, he inherits Stan's fortune.
The dash clock pulsed 9:22.
A poet once wrote about 'time's maggot on my back.' John Newton felt that now. He felt a wormy, itchy presence there. Less than three hours to midnight.
Both Elizabeth and Miranda were shooting him anxious looks as if asking themselves whether he'd gone mad. And when he swung the car right, bouncing it along the dirt track their expressions of anxiety turned to alarm.