Who Killed the Lark

WHO KILLED THE LARK?

by

MARGARET KNIGHT

Published by Sheraton Media at Smashwords

Copyright Margaret Knight 2013

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Who Killed The Lark is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

Cover illustration by Michael Goodman

Smashwords edition published by

Sheraton Media

Christ Church ,Barbados

sheratonmedia@hotmail.com

ISBN 978-0-9822477-8-5

In loving memory of

Gwen and Thora

Whose love for life lives on

Through these pages

CHAPTER ONE

Ada Lark loved champagne. Had she been able to do so, she would have been drinking it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And now, as she leaned across the table and tilted the bottle of Dom Perignon towards Father Strobe’s almost empty glass, she purred, More champagne, Eddie?"

If you insist, Ada, just a few drops. He picked up his glass and stretched his arm out towards the tilting bottle. The few drops filled his glass, and he made no attempt to stop her pouring.

On the third finger of his right hand sat a huge gold signet ring. Not a poor man, this Rector, or Reverend Father, or whatever he called himself. There was a smile on his face. There was always a smile on his face, but to me, sitting opposite, it was an insipid, false smile. It was sugary, and it never reached his piercing blue eyes.

No one else ever seemed to notice that supercilious smile, not a single soul, so mostly I kept my lips buttoned on that subject.

Father Edward Strobe was a large, beefy man, who seemed to expand every which way – across and up and down. He had a habit of tugging at his dog collar (when wearing it, because at other times he could be seen sporting a loud, jazzy shirt with palm trees and beach scenes and steel bands), as if it were too tight, but then that was not surprising, for he had a large neck. His features were ruddy – more like those of an English farmer exposed to all the elements of a Shropshire farm, whistling roundup time to his Border Collie. He was balding on the top of his round, shiny head and what little brown hair he had, hung limply on the sides of his head.

There were four other persons sitting at Ada Lark’s extended mahogany dining table, in the center of the large dining room, cooled by a whirring ceiling fan – Vivienne Strobe, wife of the Reverend, my twin sisters, Belle Duncan, and Fleur Hildesheim, and lastly me, Katherine (‘Kate’) Parnell. The bachelor girl. Belle and Fleur were my seniors by two years.

At the far end of the room, stood a long sideboard, upon which sat a silver bowl with an arrangement of flowers – roses, gladioli, chrysanthemums and a few pink ginger lilies.

A china cabinet, containing Willow pattern plates, and Royal Doulton bits and pieces, (of which Mrs. ‘Bookay’ of Keeping Up Appearances would no doubt have been envious) sat against another wall, while a Regency side table, in another corner, was decorated with photographs of people of all descriptions, including an English nanny pushing a huge black pram near what I took to be the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, people obviously dear to Ada Lark. A few Impressionist paintings hung triumphantly on the eggshell-coloured walls.

The western wall was broken by a large wooden banquet door – which now stood open – leading on to a wide tiled patio, and at the end of the patio was a wooden-slatted sundeck with steps leading down to the waves of the blue Caribbean sea, lapping gently onto the sandy Barbados beach.

Vivienne Strobe was a rather timid, petite soul, in stark contrast to her husband. Ada had apparently also invited that gorgeous policeman from the C.I.D., Radcliffe Blakeman, but due to pressure of work, he had been unable to attend.

It had been an enjoyable dinner, prepared by Ada Lark’s young chef-cum-butler, who particularly favoured French-style cooking. Tonight he had excelled himself with Foie Gras Flambe, Soup Froide aux Poireaux, Canard a l’Ananas, and finally, as if to cushion the rich stuff swilling its way through the twisting alimentary canal, a soft Crème Brulee.

Red wine, white wine – take your pick – and champagne had accompanied the meal, with coffee, brandy or liqueur to round it off.

Belle, Fleur and I excused ourselves, and disappeared into the powder room. I rubbed my tummy, ejected a poppy little fart, and made a face. "Hell’s bells and buckets of blood, that was some meal!" I declared.

Belle and Fleur held their noses and said, together, You can say that again!

I would have thought Vivienne would have joined us in here, what with the amount of wine she consumed, Belle said.

She’s a bit standoffish, I find. Maybe just shy, but she doesn’t talk much, does she, observed Fleur.

He rules her. Flat statement from me.

Belle and Fleur both stared at me. How in hell do you know that? asked Belle. I thought you didn’t know them.

"I don’t really know them. I’m just guessing. I met them once before, but … I shrugged I can just tell."

Belle rolled her eyes upwards and said, There she goes again – the Private Eye Extraordinaire.

I laughed. Yeah, right.

When we emerged from the loo, we were pleasantly surprised to hear the sound of a beautiful contralto voice accompanied by the tinkling of piano keys, coming from the direction of the drawing room. Father Strobe was playing the piano, and Ada was singing "A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square". Nightingale notwithstanding, Ada sang like a lark.

We all clapped heartily when she had finished, and Eddie Strobe told us that Ada had sung in concerts in England, as well as in Barbados. We asked her to sing some more, but she brushed the suggestion aside with a sweep of her hand, and led us all out on to the patio.

It was good to get outside in the cool night air. The gaily-patterned cushions on the white wrought iron chairs on the patio were comfortable and the soft, but adequate lighting was soothing. Crickets chirped and fireflies flitted and sparkled, in and out of the shrubs surrounding the patio.

Belle and Fleur loved Eddie Strobe; thought the sun shone from his backside, so they skipped daintily over to his chair and sat in chairs on either side of him, and behaved in a coquettish manner. Vivienne smiled her acceptance, but shifted about in her chair, probably thinking to herself, better watch these two. Wives never seemed to be completely at ease with the vivacious Twin around. They were both considered dangerously unattached, still on the young side, tall, good-looking and fashionably dressed. They enjoyed parties and night-clubbing. Belle sometimes went a bit overboard with the eye makeup and looked a bit Dolly Parton-ish. Enough to make any wife squirm.

Ada called out to her butler, and he immediately appeared, like a genie out of a bottle, to make sure that everyone was organized with a drink, and then she moved to the far end of the patio, and signaled to me to follow her. We sat, and I gazed, beyond the deck, out to sea. The security lights around the house, were in stark contrast to the soft, comforting patio lights and I had to squint my eyes to make out the lights of a passing cruise ship way out on the horizon. It was traveling northwest – probably making stops at St. Lucia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands before putting in to its home port in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Ada’s hand on my knee brought me back from Fort Lauderdale, and I looked at her thin mouth, with its mild-coloured lipstick and her tanned, wrinkled skin. She would be about fifty-five, I reckoned. Her hair was at that stage between blond and grey, and little whiffs of it fell across her forehead. She was a good-looking woman, with what I can only describe as a typical English face. She smelled of flowery perfume.

My dear Katherine, said Ada, I am so glad you could come to dinner. We must get to know each other better – after all, we are practically neighbours, give or take quarter of a mile or so.

I lived south along the west coast from Ada Lark’s seaside villa, standing in two acres of richly landscaped gardens. My modest house was by no means as imposing, but what the heck – it suited me and was comfortable.

Please call me Kate – everyone does. It was very kind of you to invite me, and as you say, we must keep in touch. I was very happy when we met on the beach last week. I said to her. I do get a bit lonely at times.

I am most terribly sorry to hear about your parents. It was about two years ago, I understand from Father Eddie.

I took a deep breath. I did not like talking about the car accident that had claimed the lives of both my parents, and for a long time afterwards I had withdrawn into a shell. Belle and Fleur had been a great comfort, but they had their separate lives, and each other. Twins are usually very close and always seem to find comfort and solace in their closeness. When tragedy strikes, they seem able to come to grips with it together, and share their grief. I felt a little excluded from this closeness.

I nodded and slapped at a mosquito, which wanted my blood. Thank you. Yes, it was two years ago. I continued to live on the plantation, thinking that I could manage it, and that with the physical work involved I would have had little time to grieve. I was wrong. The plantation seemed to envelop and imprison me, and everywhere I turned, I could see my dad on a horse or in the Land Rover, or my mum going about her daily chores, instructing the domestic staff. I shivered at the memories.

My dear, you don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to, said Ada, patting my knee again. A frightening thought entered my head – was she a dyke? But I dismissed it immediately. She was just kind.

‘Oh, that’s all right, I can talk about it now that I am in a completely new environment. I sold the plantation when I found the little two-and-a-half-bedroom bungalow on the beach. Somehow I knew I would be happy there. I looked at Ada. And – well, here I am. Now let me hear your story, Mrs. Lark."

Oh, please – call me Ada. What is there to tell, except that I love life here in Barbados, and wouldn’t wish to live anywhere else in the world.

Were you born in England?

Oh, yes, not far from Dorchester, in Dorset. Do you know England?

I nodded. I do indeed. I once stayed on a farm near Dorchester. Beautiful countryside. Thomas Hardy and all that.

Ada had a far-away look in her eyes. Yes, very beautiful. She sighed. My dear departed husband was in the Foreign Service, Diplomatic Corps. He was with the British High Commission here in Barbados for five years. He – he died of a massive heart attack at work, and I flew, with his body back to England where we buried him. I lived at our home in Horsham, Sussex, for a few years, and then, much like you, I decided to kill the ghosts and memories, and return to Barbados. We had both loved it so much. She spread her hands in her lap, in a resigned gesture. I’ve never regretted returning to Barbados. I was lucky to be able to buy this property, which was being advertised by London agents.

We were both silent for moments of reflection, as we gazed out to sea, watching the last twinkling lights of the cruise liner.

The quiet moment was interrupted by the intrusion of the butler, whose name was Paul. Tall and skinny, with rather baby-faced black features, beautiful white teeth and a ready smile. He made his presence known by exaggerated gestures of the hands, quick head movements, and little pirouettes when he turned. His black pants were tight-fitting and he wore a white shirt and a black bowtie. His accent denoted that he was from one of the other Caribbean islands. My guess would have been Dominica.

Everyt’ing okay, Mistress Lark? Drinks for your guests?

Ada Lark looked around at everyone with raised eyebrows and hand gestures, but glasses were still half full. Everything was fine. Eddie Strobe raised his brandy glass and said, I’m fine, as if he were the only one who mattered.

Ada looked at me and said, Shall we move a little closer to the others? Paul, would you mind pulling our chairs, please?

When we were repositioned in a semi-circle, Ada said to me, What do you do with yourself all day, Kate? Do you have a job?

But lo and behold, before I could answer, up pipes Eddie Strobe. Gracious me, didn’t you know? She’s a Private Investigator.

Everyone looked at me, with my mouth open ready to speak. I had been on the verge of revealing that fact, and felt cheated. I glared at Father Strobe, who continued, unperturbed, Aren’t you, my dear?

I shut my mouth and nodded my head, yes.

Ada glanced at me, removed her eyeglasses and raised her eyebrows. Go on! Are you really? How terribly interesting. Jolly good for you.

I sent Eddie Strobe a look of loathing. His supercilious smile had disappeared. He had been caught off guard, but when he realized this, the smile came creeping back, like a slit in a Halloween pumpkin, but it never reached his eyes.

Vivienne leaned forward in her chair and spoke. She had hardly uttered a word all evening. Goodness me, I had heard that you were a P.I., but thought it was just one of those rumours that Barbadians are so famous for. A Flatfoot! I’ve always wanted to meet one.

Fleur fidgeted in her chair, and Belle puffed out like a frog, ready to leap off a lily pad on a pond. She’s not a Flatfoot! She’s a bloody good detective. She did an extensive course in London, you know. Extensive? Trust Belle to grossly exaggerate.

Vivienne blushed. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it rudely. My favourite books are Mysteries and Whodunnits, and now here I am, actually meeting a Private Eye. I love it!

I was a bit embarrassed. I said, Well, it’s interesting work, if nothing else. I noticed Father Eddie’s piercing blue eyes glued on my face. It sent shivers down my spine. Why did I not like this man? He appeared affable, friendly, and everyone I knew liked him. I had met him and Vivienne one morning on the beach soon after moving into my bungalow, and they had both welcomed me to the community - although they themselves lived at the Rectory up the hill - but we had not established a friendship.

Ada stretched out her hand and rested it on my chair. Well, my dear, if at any time my family heirlooms go missing, I’ll call on you to recover them!

We all laughed. Fleur said, Rad Blakeman, Kate’s friend from the C.I.D. would be only too happy to help her, Ada.

Ah, yes, Rad Blakeman. I’ve met him at a few cocktail parties. Pity he was unable to join us this evening. He’s such a darling person. Ada had previously been told by Father Strobe that Rad Blakeman and I were very close friends. And that was why Ada had craftily invited the policeman to dinner. He, like the Strobes at the Rectory, lived up the hill from the coast road.

And so a friendship of sorts had been established. Ada Lark, the Strobes, Belle, Fleur, and me. We had talked, drank and joked until late into the night, while the tree frogs and crickets kept up a cacophony of sound in the gardens, doing their best to drown out our conversation and gaiety. Sheet lightning flashed occasionally across the western horizon, lighting up patches of dark cloud. Perhaps there were thunderstorms in St. Vincent, which lay due west.

Did I say a friendship of sorts had been established? That would later be relevant.

CHAPTER TWO

I lay in bed that night, re-living the evening, which by and large, I had enjoyed. Yes, it would have been nice if Rad had been there. Rad. Big, comforting, methodical, brown-skin Rad, who looked so much like Harry Belafonte.

Rad, the Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department, was a different person from the private Rad. The private Rad, serious at times, was light-hearted, with a sense of humour. He was probably a tender, considerate lover, I thought, smiling secretively to myself, but that stage of our friendship hadn’t yet been reached. Perhaps it was waiting in the wings, to spring, at some later date, a surprise on both of us; or perhaps to blossom forth slowly. Only time would tell. I just knew that I wanted it to happen. It was possible that Rad was being cautious. Although mixed marriages and mixed dating existed in Barbados, the incidences were not all that numerous, especially among native Barbadians.

I had first met Radcliffe Blakeman some few years previously, when he had been a sergeant in the C.I.D. There had been a robbery at the plantation, and he had been in charge of the investigation. I had gone into the drawing room to fetch a book I had left there, and saw Dad chatting with two men. Dad had casually said, Oh, Kate, this is Sergeant Radcliffe Blakeman, and police constable Brown from the C.I.D. They’re investigating the robbery.

I had shaken hands with both men, and when I looked into Radcliffe’s sexy, velvety-brown eyes, my hand had lingered in his, and I gave him a coy smile. He was wearing light grey trousers, black loafers, and a sky-blue open-neck long-sleeve shirt, with the sleeves cuffed back to three-quarters. Sort of Don Johnson of Miami Vice style. Dad cleared his throat, and gave me a get outa here look. I quickly picked up the book from a side table and left the room.

I had seen Radcliffe once or twice after that, but had left the island for England, to do a course in Private Investigation. Mum and Dad, together with Belle and Fleur had tried to persuade me along other lines. Dad had said, For heaven’s sake, Kate, a lady doesn’t do that kind of work, and Mum had clicked her tongue, shaken her head and said, Come on, Kate, you can do better than that!

Belle and Fleur? They too shook their heads and asked why that particular line of work, for gosh sake. But I was determined. I had read lots of Agatha Christies and other books on mystery and crime, and was fascinated with the investigative work involved. It’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle, I figured - all the pieces have to fit.

I was twenty, and had left boarding-school in England - having spent six years there. A few ‘Os’ and one ‘A’ Level were satisfactory to me.

Belle and Fleur had left school two years before me, and had returned to Barbados. When it was my turn to leave school, Mum had come over to England to escort me back home. Not that I reckoned I needed an escort, because by then I was a pretty independent little sod. But Mum would have used any excuse to visit dear old England, as she called it.

So I took off for England once again, and being no stranger to that country, I easily found my way around London, where I completed my course in investigative work.

Belle and Fleur got married. Belle first, and Fleur one year later. Belle married the son of a neighbouring plantation family, and Fleur married a young German, who was a traveling Pharmaceutical representative. This was not pleasing to Dad. Too blasted arrogant, and, look what they did to the Jews in World War II. No sir, I don’t trust them.

Everyone countered, But, Parnie, that was over fifty years ago. You can’t hold that against this German generation. But my dad was adamant. Once a German, always a German.

Fleur was upset, but Belle and I hugged and comforted her. You love this guy and he loves you, forget Daddy’s foolish talk. He lives in the past.

So Fleur had married her German, Ulrich, with or without Dad’s blessings. She had gone off to Germany with him, bore him one child, and when the child was two years old, Fleur had arrived, unannounced, on the plantation Great House front steps, with the child in tow. He’s a bastard, she said. We all stared at her open-mouthed. The child was a bastard? No, of course not. Ulrich was the bastard.

I’ve left him. She set the child down from her arms, on to the porch, and said, This is George.

The whole family had congregated on the front porch, and there was a great commotion. Even the grackles in the Evergreen tree cackled. Everyone wanted to be the first to pick George up and cuddle him. He was a beautiful child. Blond, of course, and Dad said, God, how Aryan can you get!

When the commotion had died down, and everyone was seated in the long, wide veranda overlooking the garden and plantation grounds, planted with row upon row of sugar cane, yams, sweet potatoes, okras, and numerous other crops, the story of Fleur’s marital experiences unfolded. Dad did not actually say anything, but his expression said, I told you so. He looked at each of us in turn and said, So, where do we go from here?

Fleur looked at everyone with a blank expression on her face. She shrugged. You tell me. I’m all at sixes and nines. I mean …

Okay, stop right there, interjected our mother, We have a solution to the immediate problem – you and little George are welcome to stay here until you get yourself sorted out. She glanced at Dad. I think your father was thinking of Ulrich. Is he likely to follow you and try to take the child back to Germany, do you think?

Fleur shook her head. I very much doubt it, he never wanted children in the first place, and he ran off to the south of France with another woman when I was pregnant. Mum, it’s a long story, but the truth is, he was never really in love with me, and his parents weren’t very helpful. They kept me at arm’s length. Afraid I may be ‘tainted’ with coloured blood, coming from the West Indies.

We all stared at her. She continued, Ulrich will gladly give me a divorce, I’m sure. I don’t foresee any problems. She pulled George on to her lap because he was pulling at the many potted plants scattered around the veranda.

Fleur had been right – Ulrich’s lawyer contacted her and divorce proceedings went through without a hitch.

Fleur found a job, an apartment on the west coast, and a nanny to look after George. We had tried to coax her to stay on at the plantation, but to no avail.

It was not long after that – two New Year’s Eves, in fact – that the accident had happened. Belle’s husband, Ian, had been driving home in the early hours of the morning, after partying at a plantation home up the other end of the island. Belle was in the back seat with Mum, and Dad Parnell rode up front with Ian. According to Belle, who was the only survivor of the crash, a car had shot across the road from a side turning, and she remembered only hearing a terrible crash. She had been knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital with severe cuts and bruises, from which she recovered amazingly quickly.

Fleur and I had teamed up with friends that night and gone to the New Year’s Eve Ball at the Yacht Club. We had eaten breakfast at the Yacht Club at five in the morning, and then I had spent the rest of the morning with Fleur at her apartment.

The telephone call came through, first from the hospital at seven-thirty, and then from the police at eight o’clock, that fateful morning. Fleur had screamed and gone into hysterics, and I collapsed on the kitchen floor. Fainted dead away.

Barbadians love funerals and weddings. The Parnell funeral had beaten all expectations – it seemed as if the entire population of the island was present. Black people, brown people, white people. My Dad and Mum had been well liked and respected.

The plantation workers liked Dad; they said he was a ‘fair boss’, and every year on Boxing Day, he put on a buffet luncheon for them and their families, and a fine array of food was displayed on a long table under the shady Evergreen trees. A Tuk Band was always on hand for entertainment. The event was reminiscent of the Crop Over festivities, signifying the end of the sugar cane crop, which in days of yore took place on every plantation in