by M. J. Trow
‘You might as well lock up. I won't need to get back in. Email me if you find anything.’
‘Will do, guv,’ and Josh was gone, back to the dubious pleasure of the underbed secrets of Tommy Morley.
As she walked down the Morley’s tiny drive, along the small stretch of pavement and back up Hetty’s path, Jacquie tried to imagine what the woman would be like. Would she be like Henry, bland and inscrutable behind outsize, reflecting glasses? Were they twins, as she and Maxwell had imagined? And what on earth was her name? She rang the bell and stood back. Although this house was the other half of the Morley’s semi, the differences were clear. The windowsill was full of photographs in various different frames, scattered willy-nilly along its length. An old birthday card was wedged between two at the side and Jacquie imagined that from inside it was invisible behind the curtain and had just been left behind. A dog lead and a pair of wellies were stashed in a corner of the porch, a handful of poop scoop bags shoved down inside one boot. A single strand of left-behind Christmas tinsel was caught in a drawing-pin at the very top of the doorframe. Not neglected or dirty, Jacquie decided. Just a proper house, lived in by real people.
The bell was greeted by the yapping of a very small, very irate dog, clearly bouncing up and down just inside the door. Jacquie looked again at the lead, which was thick enough to tether a wild ox and was attached to a harness. A plaque on the front read ‘Killer’. So, either Hetty had just lost a dog or she had a sense of humour. Jacquie hoped it would be the latter.
And it was. The barking stopped abruptly and the door was flung open. The woman who stood there was the complete antithesis of Henry Hall. She was little and round and her hair fluffed up crazily around her head. She held a minute Yorkie in one hand, almost absent-mindedly. She was wearing glasses, but they were tiny, gold-framed and perched on the end of her ski-jump nose. ‘Excuse Killer,’ she said. ‘He’s all talk.’ She looked her visitor up and down. ‘You must be Jacquie. Henry’s told me so much about you, I feel we’re friends already.’ She stepped aside, gesturing with Killer for Jacquie to go down the hall. ‘Go down into the kitchen. It’s warmer and I’ve just got some brownies out of the oven. We can have one while we chat.’
Jacquie found herself herded down the hall into a warm and welcoming kitchen. Pictures were stuck up on the fridge, of crooked houses, flowers the size of trees, people the size of giraffes. Hetty saw her glance and chuckled. ‘The joys of grandparentdom,’ she said. ‘The other joy being you can give them back. Now,’ she gestured with Killer again then, suddenly realising she still had him in her hand, put him down. ‘Basket!’ she said and with a warning yap, the little creature scuttled away to a minute basket in the corner by an Aga which had been shoehorned into the room. The whole atmosphere was of a farmhouse kitchen and Jacquie almost expected a couple of chickens to wander in from the yard outside. It was hard to remember that this house was one in a road of identical houses in the backend of Leighford.
Hetty sat down, picked up a knife and carved off a huge slab of brownie. ‘Now,’ she began again, ‘you’re obviously here about next door.’
Jacquie grasped this first opportunity she had been given to speak. ‘Yes. Henry showed me the report from your phone call.’
‘A disgrace!’ The little woman fairly bristled with annoyance. ‘I had a visit from some chit of a thing from Social Services and that was that. I had to change the bedroom round. I know that sounds cowardly, but I couldn’t bear to hear what was going on any more.’
‘I do understand,’ Jacquie said. ‘Sometimes the wheels come off the system. You did what you could.’
Hetty shrugged, tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t know what everyone is thinking, putting flowers outside. That woman was poison. Just poison.’
Jacquie got out her notebook. ‘Do you mind if I jot a few things down?’ she asked.
‘Not at all. My husband is a policeman, or was before he retired. And Henry, of course. He’s done so well.’ She smiled. ‘I bet you didn’t even know he had a sister, did you?’
Jacquie smiled back. It was hard not to. ‘DCI Hall keeps himself to himself,’ she said, diplomatically.
‘I’m older than him, of course,’ Hetty reminisced. ‘Not by that much, but enough to mean we were never in the same school together, that kind of gap.’
Jacquie understood. Maxwell and his sister Sandie were the same and although they loved each other, they had few terms of reference in common. She often wondered if Nolan was going to remain an only – time to do something about it if not ... she tuned back in to Hetty.
‘... so, I was something of a surrogate mother to Henry in many ways.’ She walked over to a coffee machine on the worktop. ‘Coffee? Or tea? It’s only a matter of which pod to put in, I’m afraid. I haven’t used a teapot in years.’
‘Coffee, please,’ Jacquie said, picking absently at the brownie, which was totally amazing. It stopped her in her tracks. ‘This,’ she said, pointing, ‘this ...’
‘I know,’ Hetty said, smugly. ‘It’s my own recipe. It always takes people like that. Sugar?’
Jacquie shook her head and flattened out her notebook, trying to look like someone who meant business. ‘Can I just have your full name, please?’ she said. ‘For the record.’
Henry’s big sister sat down and looked solemn. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Won’t Hetty do?’
‘Well, it will if it’s your name.’ Jacquie was quite excited. She was finally going to find out.
‘I suppose you’re right. If this goes to court, it has to be correct. The name is Ethel. Ethel Hampshire.’
Jacquie wrote it down, trying to swallow her disappointment.
‘I was named after my grandmother,’ Hetty said. ‘As soon as it was done, my parents were sorry, so I have been Hetty ever since. And do you know,’ she said, leaning forward, ‘it’s funny but lots of people think it’s short for Henrietta.’ She laughed. ‘As if anyone would call one child Henrietta and another Henry. Madness!’
Jacquie laughed as well. ‘Madness, you’re quite right,’ she said. ‘Right, now ... do you mind if I call you Hetty?’
‘Oh, please! Mrs Hampshire is my mother-in-law in my book, even though she’s been dead nearly twenty years, thank the lord.’
‘Right.’ Jacquie could see that there would be no problem with getting the truth out of Hetty Hampshire. She just opened her mouth and everything just fell out. ‘I won't take you back through the entire history of next door, what you’ve heard and so on. I would just like the gist, if that’s all right, with a bit more detail over the last ... shall we say week or so?’
Hetty took a bite of brownie and frowned. ‘It’s hard to know where to start ... We lived here already when they moved in. They’d only been married a month or so then and she was so pregnant she was ready to pop. She wasn’t very friendly, but I went round, with some clothes of the boys’, you know, baby things to help them along. They didn’t seem to have much and they were very young. He wasn’t even twenty, I shouldn’t think, though she was obviously quite a bit older. From the start, he was besotted by the baby, although from things she dropped in conversation, he wasn’t his.’
‘She told you about that? Did she say who the father was?’
Hetty laughed and sprayed brownie crumbs across the table. ‘Sorry. No, she never said. But she was very inappropriate about poor Thomas.’ The older woman blushed. ‘Comparisons. That kind of thing.’
‘To you – face to face?’ Jacquie thought she had better check. ‘It wasn’t just things you might overhear?’
‘Oh, no. The overhearing was different. I never could hear the words. Just the tone. And then that poor little boy – well, not so little, now, I suppose – crying. Sobbing all night long. It broke my heart. That’s why my husband moved the bedroom round. So we couldn’t hear.’
‘I do understand, Hetty.’ Jacquie could see she was beginning to get upset and she knew gossip usually dried up when tears flowed. ‘Did you notice any change lately? Mo
re shouting? Less? Visitors?’
‘Well, of course, Louise didn’t go out to work.’ Hetty said this as though it explained it all.
‘No, I knew she was a stay at home mum.’
‘I think that gives the wrong impression,’ Hetty said, setting her lips primly. ‘I was a stay at home mum. I am now a stay at home granny. That means you keep the house nice, you cook, you bake. I personally like to write. Blogs, mainly, but I am getting a bit of a name for myself, in the blogging fraternity.’ She dropped her lids modestly for a moment, then her eyes flashed up and met Jacquie’s. ‘But her? Louise? No, she was stay at home, but not really a mum. She was more a stay at home tart.’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Evil to he who evil thinks, you know.’
‘Honi soit qui mal y pense. My husband would be proud of you.’
‘Not “Honey, your silk stocking’s falling down”?’
‘Prouder still – it’s not everyone who reads 1066 And All That these days.’
‘Henry has often said we would be kindred spirits. He’s very fond of your husband.’
Jacquie had always suspected it, but it was nice to have confirmation. ‘So, when you say “tart” ...’
‘I don’t mean the house was always full of men or even that they formed an orderly queue.’ Hetty pushed the brownie tray nearer and Jacquie cut another piece. ‘But there were men that came quite regularly. Almost ... but ...’
‘Hetty. I know all about not speaking ill of the dead, but this is a murder enquiry.’
The woman sighed and nodded. ‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry. I just think of Thomas and that poor child.’
‘Were you going to say “almost by appointment”?’
She nodded. ‘I didn’t always see them arrive, but it’s hard not to notice the cars. Most of them would pull up off the road and as you saw when you got here, that means it’s almost under our window. The same ones, by and large, on the same day. But not usually more than once a week, sometimes as infrequently as once a fortnight or less. Colin – my husband – he used to say he should report it. That it wouldn’t do his career any good to live next door to a knocking shop. Excuse the phrase, but that’s what he said. Then he always said that at least he didn’t work nearby ...’
‘Where was he based?’ Jacquie couldn’t remember ever meeting a Colin Hampshire.
‘He worked almost all his career in Southampton,’ she said. ‘He always had a horror of working and living in the same town. He used to say that Henry had to step carefully because of that. And you too, my dear ... sorry, I feel I know you ...’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jacquie smiled. ‘I’ve been called worse. I have it double, because teachers have to toe the line even more than the police.’ And one day, she thought, mine might actually start doing it. ‘But Colin really thought that, did he? That it was a brothel?’
‘Not a brothel, I suppose. She didn’t have ... staff. It was just her and a few select men. Very select, judging by the cars.’
‘Did you recognise anyone?’
‘Do you know,’ Hetty leaned forward, in full gossip mode, ‘I did in a few cases. Not that they were famous or anything. Just reasonably well known. You know that bloke who bought up all those little corner shops and opened them 24 hours a day, sold them for millions a few months later.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, him. And the one who used to run the buses.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought he was that well off.’
‘Perhaps not. But he was her boss for a while, according to Thomas. Back when they met first. I expect it was for old time’s sake.’ Hetty chuckled. Now the gossip was off her chest, she felt better.
‘So Thomas knew?’
‘Pardon?’ Hetty didn’t remember saying that.
‘You said Thomas told you about their boss.’
‘No, that was in another conversation. No, he didn’t know, I don’t think. Although he must have wondered where the money came from, surely.’
‘So money did change hands?’ This was interesting, but it made the suspect list very long; or very short, depending on how jealous Thomas Morley could get.
‘I think it must have done, don’t you?’ Hetty sat back, with arms folded. ‘Some of them were okay to look at. One in particular ... but that’s another matter altogether. But some of them were really no great shakes. Older, if you know what I mean. My age. Colin’s age. Not someone you would have sex with for nothing.’ She blushed crimson. ‘Oh!’
‘Don’t worry, Hetty,’ Jacquie said. ‘I won't tell Colin you said that. But Louise, if she was older than Thomas, she must be knocking forty.’
‘Well preserved, though,’ Hetty said. ‘And young by the standards of some of the men. And then there was the ... enthusiasm. I had to turn the hoover on sometimes, to drown them out.’
‘Goodness.’ Jacquie sat back in her seat.
‘So, I can't say I’m sorry she’s dead. I’m many things, but not a hypocrite, I hope.’
Jacquie made a note. ‘Did you see anyone different over the last week or so?’
‘Hard to tell. And I haven’t been here as much during the day since Christmas. My daughter’s youngest, called Maple for some reason known only to her parents, poor little soul, has had a bad chest, so I have been going there to do the granny stuff, rather than have her here. I did hear raised voices last week ...’
‘So you had to switch the hoover on?’ Jacquie thought she would check.
‘No, no, not that kind of raised voices. I mean an argument. The door slammed and a man came out and drove away. He went over the grass verge. Made quite a mess; it was after that last sharp frost and the ground was soggy.’
‘Excuse me.’ Jacquie saw a clue materialise in front of her. She took out her mobile and chose a number. Distant sounds of the theme tune from CSI: Miami reached them through the wall. ‘Oh, good,’ she said to Hetty, ‘they’re still there ... Josh? Still here.’
Her phone made plaintive squawks.
‘No, I don’t have a tracker on you. I could hear your phone through the wall. Before you go, can you have a look outside, see if there are any tyre tracks on the grass outside? If so, can you take a cast or something?’
This time, her phone was indignant.
‘Well, why don’t you carry it in your kit? This is important. Leave Robert here and go and get some if you have to, but don’t leave it to the crime scene tape. That’s just asking for tampering.’
Sulky quacking.
‘Thank you. Let me know how you get on. Bye.’ And she put the phone down. ‘They watch too much TV,’ she said with a smile.
‘I hope I haven’t given that nice young man a difficult job,’ Hetty said. ‘But I don’t think anyone else has parked up on the verge since then. Anyway, after that, it was quiet for a day or so, then they started again. It’s usually just one a day ... was I suppose I should say. It’s hard to remember what’s happened.’ She stopped for a moment, not tearful but clearly shocked. ‘This is a nice road. Not very expensive, these houses, but nice people. Mostly. I think though, since then there’s been ... let me think. The bus chap. I know he’s been. Somebody else I know ... I can’t place him, though, but I definitely know his face. And ... that’s it. Quiet week.’
Jacquie put a few final touches to her notes and then closed the book. ‘Nothing on Monday night?’
Hetty shook her head. ‘No. Colin was at the golf club, it was some farewell do, I don’t usually go to those. And I was in here, baking.’ She saw Jacquie’s face. ‘I don’t spend my life baking, but my David’s eldest has a cake stall at school every Tuesday, so I try to do my bit. So, I didn’t hear anything, although now I think about it, I didn’t hear as much hectoring from Louise as normal.’ She went white and raised her eyes to meet Jacquie’s. ‘Was she ... was she already dead?’
‘We believe she died somewhere around eleven,’ Jacquie told her.
‘I was in bed by then,’ Hetty said, relieved. ‘And Colin cam
e in around twelve and said there was a lot of kerfuffle next door, but I didn’t really take much notice. I just thought perhaps someone else had called the police.’
‘They had,’ Jacquie said, simply. ‘Tommy called, to say his mother had been stabbed.’ She popped the last bite of brownie into her mouth and stood up, brushing crumbs off her skirt. ‘Well, thanks so much, Hetty, for the information and the delicious brownie.’ Killer sat up and growled, in a falsetto.
‘Killer!’ Hetty admonished. ‘He won't hurt you,’ she said, ‘but then I suppose you had already guessed that. But we like to indulge him, bless him. He means well.’ And still whittering, Hetty bustled Jacquie to the front door and out into the wild March day.
Henry Hall was waiting in Jacquie’s office when she got back. He was sitting in her visitor’s chair, in an attitude which in anyone else would be rapt attention, but in Henry Hall’s case was complete relaxation. He looked round as she came in.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Where’ve you been? You left Hetty’s ages ago.’
‘Dear me,’ she said, unravelling her scarf and hanging it and her coat on the hook behind the door. ‘So now you’ve got a policeperson manqué in your family, too. And a real one, of course, counting Colin.’
He smiled his tiny, fleeting smile. ‘She’s taken to you. Hetty does have ... her enthusiasms. She also has her ... is there an opposite to enthusiasms?’
Jacquie sat down behind her desk and leaned back. ‘Are you trying to tell me something, guv? That what I got from your sister may be a little inaccurate, for example?’
Hall had the grace to look a little abashed. ‘Not inaccurate, no. But she has been known to indulge in hyperbole.’
Jacquie smiled. ‘The dog is called Killer – but as far as I recall, that was the only hyperbole I noticed, really. Everything she said seemed to chime with what we know from other sources and apart from the fact that she said she had to turn the hoover on to drown Louise and her gentleman callers out ...’
‘Oh, no,’ Hall said. ‘I’ve been there when she had to do that. It was quite something, I can tell you. Poor old Colin, he’s a bit strait-laced; he got in quite a stew.’
