the back of his neck.
‘Ah, that’s the trouble with public life,’ he said. ‘Always some malcontent ready to shoot his mouth off.’
‘Something here you should be telling us, George?’ the Bishop said.
22
Stepmother
The Bishop’s gaze swivelled back to Merrily, and in it was incomprehension… and suspicion.
Well, she could understand it. The hour-long journey here had been filled with an explanation of her bruised eye and everything that had led up to it: Jemmie’s sordid e-mails, Mumford and Robbie’s computer and the history books and Jason Mebus. Not reaching the Departure Lounge until they were leaving the bypass at the Sheet Lane entrance into town, with the moist blue night dropping over Ludlow like the lid on a jewel box.
And so not quite getting around to Belladonna.
‘I’ve got nothing to hide about this,’ George Lackland said. ‘Nobody could possibly expect me to like the woman.’
He was standing up now, behind his cream leather chair, both hands gripping its wings. One of the bulbs in the chandelier had blown and was hanging there like a bad tooth, making the room seem just slightly tawdry.
‘When the boy came home with this girl, Susannah, she was everything you’d want for your son — respectable, steady, nicely spoken. And a solicitor, too, of course. Always useful to have a solicitor in the family, especially with a firm like Smith, Sebald and Partners.’
Merrily glanced at Bernie, both eyebrows raised to convey that she had no idea what the hell the Mayor was talking about.
‘Sorry, George,’ Bernie said, ‘I’m a bit out of touch — which boy is this, Douglas, or, ah…?’
‘Stephen, the younger one. The one who went to university. Like Nancy said, when you think of the girls he might have brought home from that place…’
‘He’s, ah, engaged, is he?’
‘To this girl from Smith, Sebald, as I say. Very well established firm, as you know — offices in Ludlow, Bridgenorth and Church Stretton. She’ll be a partner one day, Bernard, no question of that.’
‘I’m sorry, George — who exactly are we talking about?’
‘Susannah,’ the Mayor said. ‘Susannah Pepper.’
‘Ah,’ Merrily said.
Of course.
Bloody hell.
‘Your… future daughter-in-law… her father would be a record producer called Saul Pepper?’
The Mayor looked at her with keen interest. ‘That’s quite correct, Mrs Watkins. But how could you—?’
‘I have a friend in the music business. I gather Saul Pepper lives and works in America now, since the break-up of his marriage to… Mrs Pepper.’ She turned to Bernie. ‘Who lives in the renovated farmhouse at the bottom of The Linney — and was seen in the castle with…?’
The Mayor’s hands tightened on the chair wings, and then he turned away. Merrily could tell that getting the story out of him was going to be like dredging a pond — a lot of discoloured water and sludge, and the bottom never quite exposed.
But enough had now been clarified — particularly the warning-off of Andy Mumford — to make the exercise well worthwhile, no matter how long it took.
‘They were engaged before you met her mother, then,’ Merrily said.
George spun round. ‘Stepmother!’
‘Of course.’
‘But yes, you put your finger on it there all right, Mrs Watkins, we had not met her before the engagement.’
‘George, do excuse me,’ Bernie said, ‘but my own knowledge of the, ah, the stepmother is somewhat scant.’
‘Aye, and if my knowledge was as scant as yours, Bernard,’ George said, ‘I’d count myself a happy man.’
Of course, when Susannah Pepper had told them her stepmother was coming to stay, George hadn’t known who this woman was, let alone why she was considered notorious. He knew that Sue’s mother had been deserted by her father for the woman, whom he’d proceeded to marry. It hadn’t lasted, however, and he’d moved to America, starting a new family over there.
Well out of it, as George now realized, although the divorce had been amicable.
‘She has… considerable assets, Bernard. Could probably buy my business twice over. Susannah’s her solicitor and financial adviser. And nursemaid, now. And, by God, she needs one. Day and night. Particularly at night.’
Merrily said nothing. Let this come out in its own way.
‘Whenever they needed to discuss her financial affairs, Susannah used to travel to her stepmother’s home,’ the Mayor said, ‘wherever it happened to be at the time. She moved around a lot, London one year, Paris or Rome the next. And then… she came to Ludlow.’
Well, that first visit of the stepmother… George didn’t think much of it. Not an event he was ever going to keep gilt-framed in the formal gallery of his memory. And nothing particularly amiss at first. They weren’t contemporaries, George and Bell, not by ten or more years, yet for that first meeting she’d been dressed decently and conservatively, if a little eccentrically, in an Edwardian-type summer dress, her blonde hair neatly styled, Nancy had noted. Quite girlish, rather attractive.
And clearly besotted with the town, from the start.
George should have spotted the danger signs: the woman tripping and gliding around the Buttercross, this delighted smile on her face, upturned to the sun. And then breaking into almost a dance. He was quite gratified, at first, in his proprietorial way. Not having any idea then that she was already planning to stay…
… For good.
George looked at the Bishop. ‘Do you know that she tried to get one of the flats at Castle House?’
‘Was she eligible?’ Bernie turned to Merrily. ‘We mentioned this earlier — there was a large house built onto the outer walls in, I think, the nineteenth century. Later turned into council flats, would you believe? Not quite sure what the situation is at present.’
‘There was a couple living there, halfway through a forty-five-year lease,’ George said, ‘and she tried to take it over. She was besotted with the idea of living inside the castle. I think she thought if she could get that apartment she’d soon have the whole house — maybe feel like she owned the castle, who can say?’
‘What happened, George?’
‘Oh, the Powis estate managed to stop it. They have other plans for Castle House. But she has money, my God, she has. The people she tried to bribe! Fortunately, the Earl of Powis is a man of strong Christian principles and I reckon he saw the danger. Eventually, she settled on The Weir House — so called. I don’t know what she gave for it, but the people who rebuilt it seemed to have been well satisfied. As for Bell— Hold on a minute, would you?’
George went over to a long mahogany sideboard, opened a drawer, took out a slim box file, brought it back and emptied out the contents in front of Merrily, as if he was putting all his cards on the table.
‘This is one from the
He spread out a photocopy of a press cutting.
Ludlow is my heaven,
says rock diva Bell.
In the colour photo, Belladonna sat on the steps of the Buttercross in a filmy cream dress, arms folded. She looked graceful and calm and strangely demure.
