by Laura Wilson
‘Don’t distress yourself, dear,’ she murmured.
Mrs Reynolds gulped back her tears and pawed at her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but it’s the shock. It’s as if our life was all a lie – I thought Duncan loved me, even though I couldn’t give him a child, but she got her claws into him, and I don’t know how long…and it was all just a sham…’
‘No, Blanche…’ murmured Dearborn, ineffectually. ‘No…’
‘We don’t know that,’ said Stratton, firmly.
‘But you will find out, won’t you?’
‘Yes. I’ll take this with me, and we’ll make some enquiries.’
‘I have to know,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to know, but I have to. I can’t sleep, since…’
‘I understand, Mrs Reynolds. We’ll be looking into it. I’m sorry,’ said Stratton, ‘but I do have to ask you this. On the night that Dr Reynolds…that he died…was there anyone with you?’
‘Really!’ Dearborn, who had been staring at the floor, brought his head up with a jerk. ‘Is that necessary?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Stratton. ‘We have to follow the procedures.’
Mrs Reynolds shook her head and then, opening her eyes wide, said, ‘I was here. I told you before. I was on my own, but one of the neighbours came round, collecting – Salute the Soldier Week, I think – and I gave her something, but I can’t remember what time that was.’
‘Can you give me the name?’
Dearborn started to say something, but Mrs Reynolds laid a hand on his arm. ‘It’s all right, Alec, they have to do their job. It was Mrs Loomis-Browne. Number twenty-four.’
Stratton noted it and, after further reassuring pats from Policewoman Harris and assurances that the matter would be thoroughly investigated, he shook hands with Dearborn and they took their leave.
‘You don’t think Mrs Reynolds could be involved, do you, sir?’ asked Harris, when they were in the car. They’d been to see Mrs Loomis-Browne and confirmed the story about her visit to Mrs Reynolds, which had taken place sometime between half-past six and seven o’clock in the evening.
‘Not really,’ said Stratton. ‘Mind you, women have killed their husbands for less, although the money seems to be hers, not his, so she’s got nothing to worry about on that score.’
‘I’ve got a Dearborn hairbrush myself,’ said Harris. ‘Jolly good, they are. But if she’d killed him, she wouldn’t have shown you the note, would she? I mean, it gives her a motive.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Do you think the woman who wrote it might be one of his patients, sir?’
‘Well, she could be,’ said Stratton, ‘but she’s not.’
Harris’s eyes widened. ‘Do you know who it is, then?’
‘Let’s just say,’ said Stratton, grimly, ‘that I’ve got a pretty good idea.’
Twenty-Three
‘Hope you don’t mind, dear, but it’s as black as my shoe. I’m afraid we’ve run out of milk.’
Jenny glanced into the cup of stewed liquid presented to her by Mrs Haskins. ‘Oh, well. Beggars can’t be choosers. Thank you, dear.’ She had already spent several fruitless hours at the Rest Centre attempting to get through to the assistance board, the hospital and the mortuary in pursuit of a missing woman and was about to take a well-earned rest when the double doors at the end of the school hall flew open and Mr Ingram hurled himself through them.
‘Mrs Stratton!’ he bawled, running headlong towards her, pursued by several indignant ladies. He turned to Jenny. ‘I’ve got to see her,’ he said. ‘Please, help me to see her.’ He leant across the table and whispered, hoarsely, ‘I’m not meant to be here. I kept asking, but they wouldn’t let me, so—’
Jenny held up a hand. He might have frightened her before, but she recognised desperation when she saw it, and this was a man at the end of his tether. ‘It’s all right,’ she told Mrs Haskins. ‘I know this gentleman. If you wouldn’t mind…’ she indicated the man she’d been helping, ‘I’ll take him to see his wife.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘She’s staying with my sister Doris. They were bombed out.’
Mrs Haskins took her sleeve and drew her aside. ‘He came bursting in like a madman,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘Are you sure he’s all there?’
‘He’s worried about his wife,’ murmured Jenny. ‘She’s been staying with my sister Doris and she went a bit funny in the head.’
‘He’s a bit funny, too, by the look of things…Well, good luck, dear. Rather you than me – be careful.’
Mr Ingram followed Jenny outside, then, impulsively, grabbed her hand.
‘Would you mind?’ she asked, wriggling from his grip.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Stratton, it’s just that I was so worried, after what happened…’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Jenny. ‘But now—’
‘No, that’s what I mean, what just happened five minutes ago. I’ve been round to Mrs Kerr’s – she wasn’t there, else she’d have opened the door herself, so I called Elsie’s name through the letterbox and waited a bit until she came downstairs. She was talking to me all the time, asking why I’d been so long, and how she’d thought I’d left her and how glad she was, all this while she’s in the hall, opening the door, all excited, and then the moment she sees me she slams it shut. Right in my face, and the minute before she’d been fine…I don’t understand. I feel as if I’m going mad.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jenny. ‘I don’t understand it, either. No-one seems to.’
‘You don’t think…if you were to come back with me to Mrs Kerr’s…?’
Jenny seriously doubted this, but, feeling that she must do something, said, ‘Well, I do have a key. Let me fetch my things, and I’ll come along now.’
As they walked the few streets to Doris’s house, Mr Ingram said, ‘The doctor said she’d get better. Mrs Kerr told me. She’s always suffered with her nerves, but never like this.’
Jenny sighed. ‘Well, it’s a dreadful thing to happen, especially to someone who’s…sensitive.’ ‘Sensitive’, she felt, had more merit than ‘nervous’, and wasn’t so far down the sliding scale of mental afflictions that ended in the black hole of insanity. Doris’s daughter Madeleine had repeatedly expressed the view – with a lot of eye-rolling – that one of the pair must be off their rocker, and it was just a case of deciding who; not exactly helpful, but then she was only sixteen…Both Ted and Donald, when applied to, had taken the ‘give it time’ line (Donald with less forbearance than Ted, but it was his house, after all).
Jenny and Doris, in their wilder moments, had developed a theory, based mainly on the film Gaslight, that Mr Ingram was deliberately trying to make everyone think Mrs Ingram was mad by bribing a friend to pretend to be him, so that she’d be locked away and he could get his hands on her money (supposing she had any), and it was this she remembered now. Perhaps, after all, he was just pulling the wool over their eyes. Or perhaps he was mad and just thought he was Eric Ingram. This idea now seemed so far-fetched that she almost laughed.
‘I don’t understand it,’ Mr Ingram was saying. ‘You don’t think…’ He halted, putting a hand on Jenny’s arm. ‘…that she’s punishing me for something I’ve done wrong? Because I’ve always tried to be a good husband to her, Mrs Stratton. What if she doesn’t get better?’ he asked. ‘Will she have to go to…to…?’ Jenny knew what he was talking about – the big asylum at Barnet. He blinked several times, and said, ‘I don’t want to lose her.’
‘Good heavens, it’s not going to come to that,’ she said, as breezily as she could. ‘Look on the bright side. She recognised your voice on the telephone, didn’t she?’
Mr Ingram stood well back while Jenny unlocked the front door of Doris’s house. ‘Yoo-hoo!’ she called. ‘Mrs Ingram! It’s Jenny Stratton – I’ve come to see you!’
Hearing no reply, or even any sound, Jenny – not at all sure that she was doing the right thing – advanced cautiously d
own the hall and peered into first the kitchen and then the sitting room. Finding nobody, she stood at the bottom of the stairs and called again. Still nothing. With a sense of trepidation, she put one foot on the first step. What if Mrs Ingram had done something silly? Several images of just what ‘something silly’ might entail – the slight body, dwarfed by her sister’s dressing gown, hanging from a rope; slumped against the bathroom door, wrists slit and hands gloved in blood; or simply tucked in bed, marbled blue-white and lifeless – crowded her mind. You’re the one being silly, she told herself. She went slowly up the stairs, crossed the landing, paused in front of the closed door of the room Mrs Ingram had been using, and then knocked.
When there was no response, Jenny cautiously pushed open the door and looked inside. The blackout curtains were closed, but she could make out the form of Mrs Ingram, huddled beneath the eiderdown, so that only the top of her head and her eyes could be seen. Even in the dim light, she looked terrified.
‘He’s not with you, is he?’ she whispered.
‘No. It’s just me.’ Jenny advanced to the end of the bed.
‘That bad man was here. He’s got my Eric. I know. I heard him talking, and then when I opened the door he wasn’t there. He must have done something to him to make him talk, and then when I opened the door they took him away.’
‘Who did?’
‘The people with that man. They’re trying to trick me. They’ve captured Eric. They’re going to do something horrible to him, and—’
‘Mrs Stratton?’ Mr Ingram’s voice came from the hall. ‘Is everything all right?’
Hearing the sounds of feet on the stairs, Jenny went to the door of the bedroom and shouted, ‘Don’t come up!’
‘That’s Eric!’ said Mrs Ingram, pushing away the eiderdown to reveal that, although dishevelled, she was fully clothed. Over the past week she’d lost what little weight she had on her, so that her cheeks had fallen in and her collarbones poked out sharply. ‘Is it really him?’ she asked. ‘Or is it other one?’
Before Jenny could close the door, Mr Ingram came into the room. Mrs Ingram shrieked and clutched at the eiderdown. ‘You let him in!’ She pointed at Jenny accusingly. ‘You’re one of them!’
‘Elsie, please—’
‘For God’s sake,’ said Jenny, ‘get out!’ Pushing Mr Ingram out, and muttering, ‘Wait downstairs,’ she shut the door and leant on it.
‘You let him in,’ repeated Mrs Ingram. Her eyes, which had been frantic, assumed an expression of fear. ‘I trusted you,’ she said. ‘You and her. I know what your game is. You’re the white slave trade. I’ve heard about people like you. Locking up girls and tricking them.’
Jenny gaped at her. ‘No, we’re not. We’re trying to help you.’
‘If you’re trying to help me, why don’t you call the police and get him arrested?’ Mrs Ingram looked at Jenny with sudden shrewdness. ‘Or are you afraid they’ll arrest you, too?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then what are you waiting for? There’s a telephone here – they let my Eric talk to me, and—’ Mrs Ingram broke off, looking doubtful. ‘If it was Eric,’ she said. ‘It might have been that other man, pretending, and I couldn’t tell because I couldn’t see him. And they’ll be listening. The Germans can do that, you know.’
‘The Germans?’ echoed Jenny, more bewildered than ever. ‘But we…r Ingram…I mean, the man who was just here…he’s English. You heard him speak.’
Mrs Ingram shook her head. ‘You’ve got people down there to take me away.’
‘There aren’t any people,’ said Jenny. ‘I’ll show you. I’m going to open the curtains – you can see the front garden and the whole street from here.’ She advanced to the window and began to unpin the black curtains in order to pull them back. As she removed the pins, she peered, surreptitiously, through the gap – it would be just her luck if there was some innocent passer-by who could be labelled as ‘one of them’. Seeing no-one, she removed the final pin and pushed back the curtains with a flourish. ‘See?’ she said.
Cautiously, Mrs Ingram uncovered herself and got off the bed. Crouching, she moved towards the window, moving her skinny limbs in a creeping scurry that made Jenny think of a spider with half its legs missing.
The confirmation seemed to deflate Mrs Ingram, who turned and burrowed, rodent-like, under the eiderdown once more. Jenny went downstairs. Mr Ingram was standing just inside the front door, his shoulders hunched, aggression coming from him in waves.
‘Well? Is she coming down?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s not really making much sense. She thinks there are people watching her – waiting to come and get her. She thinks we’re…in league with them.’
‘That’s ridiculous. I want to know what the hell is going on. I know,’ he added, hastily, ‘it’s not your fault, but…’ He shook his head, an expression of baffled disgust on his face.
‘I know, but…’ Jenny gave up. ‘I’m going to make some tea.’
As he followed her into the kitchen, she was uncomfortably aware of his tenseness and the way his fists were clenched. Although he was not a large man, his anger and desperation seemed to fill the room, charging the air. He was so close to her that she could smell his hair oil and sweat, and, before she could move to a safe distance on the other side of the table, he grabbed her arm, making her jump.
Jenny tried to pull away, but he held on, hurting her. When she looked down, his knuckles and fingers were white around her wrist. ‘Please…’ she said. ‘This isn’t going to help.’
‘I just want to show you,’ he blurted out. ‘I am her husband. Honestly. I can prove it.’ He let go of her, and, as she retreated behind the table, rubbing her arm, he thrust his hand into the top pocket of his battledress blouse and pulled out a tatty-looking wad of papers. ‘My ID card. And here’s a photograph of Elsie.’ He pushed them towards her across the table. Jenny bent her head to look, making sure she was out of his reach. The photograph, showing him and Elsie sitting in deckchairs on a beach, laughing, looked as if it had been carried around for a while.
‘Whatever she thinks,’ he said, ‘I’m not this…this other man.’
‘I know you aren’t,’ said Jenny, ‘but’ – she hesitated, pleased that he looked relieved at this but fearful of angering him again – ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for…well, for you to try and see her again – not today, anyway.’
‘What am I going to do?’ His pleasure in being believed – acknowledged for who he really was – was gone. Now his eyes were muddy and resentful, with the look of a man who has realised the magnitude of the catastrophe and is about to buckle under its weight. ‘I shouldn’t be here. They’ll be after me. What the bloody hell am I supposed to do?’ The last word was almost a howl.
Jenny took a decision. She didn’t trust Mr Ingram’s temper – apart from anything else, said a small but persistent voice in the back of her mind, he was probably feeling frustrated sexually. But it was gone six, so Doris was bound to be back soon, and Donald as well. She’d be able to keep him calm for ten minutes or so. The thing to do was to keep on the other side of the table and talk to him. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Do sit down. Please. You must be tired.’
‘Yes.’ He wiped a hand across his face. ‘I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept properly for weeks…’
Mercifully, Doris and Donald arrived at the same time, about five minutes later. Jenny skirted the table carefully and dashed outside, and the three of them had a hastily whispered conference on the front porch, during which Jenny explained what had happened and Donald muttered ‘Christ Almighty’ and cast up his eyes. Sweetened by Doris’s revelation that she’d managed to obtain new razor blades, he was prevailed upon, after more mutterings, to shepherd Mr Ingram to the pub. This was mainly because they could think of nothing else to do with him, also because he looked as though he could do with a drink.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jenny, when the men had gone, ‘but I just didn’t know wha
t else to do. I didn’t want to say this in front of Don, but she was talking about white slavers and Germans and I don’t know what else. She really has lost her marbles.’
Doris sighed, and Jenny noticed for the first time how strained she looked. ‘I know. She’s been getting odder and odder, what she comes out with. You can’t keep on arguing when she’s making no sense. I’m glad he’s gone though. Don’t think I could manage another of those go’s. I’ve been all day queuing, or that’s how it feels. Honestly, I’m so damn tired, Jen, sometimes I just feel like crying. I know there’s others worse off, but…’ Doris pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and blew her nose.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Jenny, concerned. ‘It’s not like you to be weepy.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ said Doris, firmly. ‘Don’t fuss.’ She sat down on a kitchen chair and begun fumbling in her handbag. ‘Here,’ she said, pushing a small package across the table. ‘Razor blades. Make sure Ted gets one.’
‘Oh, Doris, I don’t know how you do it, what with all this…He’ll be thrilled.’
‘Well,’ said Doris, brusquely, ‘tell him to make the most of it. I heard a rumour today that the Gillette factory was hit.’
‘Mrs Ingram’ll be worried,’ said Jenny. ‘I’ll just go up in case she thinks you’ve parachuted in to ravish her, or something. You just sit there and have a rest.’
