Spider Light

Godfrey Toy had been preparing for a quiet evening, which he thought was owed to him after the horrors of the last twenty-four hours. He was still very upset indeed. He told Oliver this, and Oliver said they were all very upset, and had recommended Godfrey to go to bed early with a hot drink, a good book and a couple of aspirin. He could put the phone by his bed if he was nervous, or even take the dinner bell to ring out of the window to summon help.

Godfrey thought this was unnecessarily flippant of Oliver, but he did think he would follow the first part of the suggestion. He would make himself a nice hot toddy to drink in bed. He might take one of the Barchester novels to read, so he could make the old joke about going to bed with a Trollope, but actually he would probably end up with Dorothy L. Sayers. He had always admired Harriet Vane’s angry independence, and he loved Sayers’ depictions of 1930s Oxford colleges.

He was just washing-up his supper things when there was a peremptory hammering at Quire’s main door. His heart skittered into a panic-stricken pattern, because although it was only seven p.m., what with murdered bodies in the music room and hangman’s ropes and convicted killers in Charity Cottage, you could no longer be sure who might turn up on the doorstep.

He waited until he heard Oliver’s second-floor door open, since, if there was some murderous maniac outside Godfrey was not going to confront him by himself, and then pattered down the stairs in the professor’s wake. Faint but pursuing, that was the keynote, although if he really had had a dinner bell he would have taken it with him, and if the caller had looked at all suspicious he would have swung it with vigour.

The caller did not look particularly suspicious; he looked impatient. He was a dark-haired man in his late thirties and he introduced himself as Jonathan Saxon and wanted to know if they could throw any light on the fact that Antonia Weston, whom he had come to see by prior arrangement, was missing. And that Charity Cottage was in darkness, its doors locked, and Dr Weston’s car was nowhere to be seen.

Godfrey was thrown into such a dither by this that he was grateful to Oliver for saying, quite coolly, ‘How do you do. Is it Doctor Saxon, by the way?’

‘It is.’

‘I thought it must be. You were Miss Weston’s boss at her hospital?’

‘I was. Where is she?’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t the remotest idea. I’m Oliver Remus, by the way. This is my colleague, Dr Toy. Has Miss Weston been in touch with you in the last twenty-four hours, Dr Saxon? I mean, to tell you what happened here last night?’

‘I haven’t spoken to Antonia since the day before yesterday, but I know she’s been the victim of some appallingly cruel tricks since she got here. I haven’t come to fight any battles for her, because she’s perfectly capable of fighting her own battles–I’m here because it sounded as if she needed a friend.’

Clearly he did not think Antonia was likely to have many friends in Amberwood, and equally clearly he did not know what had happened last night. Godfrey could not even begin to think how they would explain, and he was extremely relieved when Oliver said, ‘I think, Dr Saxon, that you’d better come in.’

They sat in Oliver’s big comfortable sitting room, and Oliver explained, briefly and succinctly, about Greg Foster’s death.

‘I’m extremely sorry about that,’ said Jonathan Saxon. ‘But it doesn’t explain Antonia’s disappearance.’

‘No, it doesn’t. That’s why I’m about to phone Inspector Curran,’ said Oliver, already dialling the number.

Inspector Curran arrived within ten minutes, and listened carefully to the story of Antonia’s call to Dr Saxon.

‘I suggested I drove up here for a day or so,’ said Jonathan. ‘And Antonia booked me in somewhere–the Rose and Crown I think she said. That’s in case any of you were thinking a different arrangement might apply.’

Sarah Rayne's books