Free Rose in Darkness by Christianna Brand

even the horrid matching little woollen cap, all thick with still damp mud. Hair tousled, hanging over her face. A hand-to-hand struggle? Well, could be. But equally, a struggle through the storm, stumbling, tripping perhaps, throwing out a gloved hand to stop herself from falling, actually falling, muddying her coat, the woolly cap tumbling off, being clapped back again over the streaming wet hair...
    But where? But when?
    Waiting by the roadside? Had Sari found her waiting by the roadside, somewhere between the pub and home—and leapt out into the rain and strangled the woman and dragged her into concealment at the back of the car? But why do such a thing? Why not leave the body where it fell? Why strangle her anyway?—with a big, powerful car at one’s disposal, with a storm of rain to wash away all signs, why not just run the woman down and leave her lying? ‘Call Mr Soames back here a moment,’ said Charlesworth.
    Rufie had sat all this time at the far end of the room in a dream of abstraction, his white face, like the face of a mime, expressionless, almost witless, staring into space. Charlesworth said: ‘When Miss Morne came in last night—of course she would have been wet through?’
    ‘Soaked,’ said Rufie. ‘I had to rub her down like a horse, poor love, and a great double brandy, a thing she simply never touches in the ordinary way.’
    ‘And covered in mud?’
    ‘Well, her boots of course, and they were clean when she went out, I did them for her myself this morning—she’s so naughty about her things and they’re so gorgeous, all that lovely leather, Gucci, you know; madly expensive but I always tell her, it’s so much worth it.’
    Such devotion to Sari’s wardrobe might well prove instructive. ‘And her beautiful leather coat?’ said Charlesworth, guilelessly. ‘I noticed it hanging up to dry. Muddy too?’
    ‘Well, not to say muddy, but all smeared with green, and scraped, too tragic. Which shows how wicked it was of me’, said Rufie, ‘not to have realised that it was true about the tree. It must all have come from pushing through to the other side. And her gloves too, the leather all scratched.’
    Had Vi Feather fought back for her life, against the choking hands in their wet leather driving gloves? ‘A good thing Miss Morne happened to be wearing—them,’ said Charlesworth, rather unhappily.
    ‘Well, but my dear, on a night like that—’
    ‘I only mean that she might have got her hands scratched.’
    ‘Oh, that would have been too awful!’ said Rufie. ‘Her hands are so perfect.’ His own right hand had two or three strange little scratches across the back of it and he very, very surreptitiously pulled down his cuff to cover them. But he was immeasurably thankful for his beloved Sari. ‘You see she did force her way past the tree, after all. She did meet the stranger. It isn’t her car,’ he said.
    She came into the room. The long legs were slender in their tight blue jeans, the brilliant green woolly, deliciously top- heavy above them. Her hair stood on end, lit from beneath with its extraordinary glow. She held out a long pale green card to Charlesworth. ‘You kept saying the log-book,’ she said. ‘This isn’t a book. It’s just a sort of bit of paper.’
    ‘But it tells us the registration number of your car,’ said Charlesworth. ‘And the engine number.’ He turned away and glanced down into the yard. He said at last: ‘The tree fell across the road? And you met this stranger? And you swapped cars?’
    ‘I told you,’ said Sari.
    ‘And subsequently a dead body is found in the car.’ He took her arm and held her while she stood beside him, staring down at the big, shining black Halcyon, out in the open now with the police still milling around it. ‘Miss Morne—look at the number plate. That’s your own car,’ he said.

6
    A ND DOWN IN WREN’S Hill, Nanny was ringing up Mummy. ‘I’ve got a bit of news for you dear, I think she lives in