‘Maybe they hadn’t enough evidence,’ said Pearl.
‘What made them think it was him?’
‘He was in Fletcham that night, seeing his son who’s at the university. Mum says he’s been upset – his wife left him, you know – he could have flipped.’
‘Yes.’
It was possible. You went through a variety of moods after a marriage died, Valerie knew. But to commit murder?
Cooley had been to see her only a few evenings ago. He’d not mentioned George Fortescue at all, but he’d asked her to let him know if she remembered anything about the man who had attacked her.
That evening, when the children were in bed, Valerie willed herself to relive the dreadful night. Deliberately, she conjured up the memory of her attacker. There was the head, in its dark woollen hood, the black jersey, the scrabbling hands, one at her waist and the other round her throat. She saw the knife clearly – or rather, the blade. It was short and sturdy.
And she saw the hand holding it, without a glove; a stubby hand, with sparse ginger hairs on the back.
There had been no smell – no masculine, sweaty smell – no aftershave, either.
Perhaps she should tell Cooley about the hand?
It was weird, Lynn thought, sitting in the van beside Uncle Ron on her way to school, how she seemed to have gone off him all of a sudden. It was seeing those magazines in the desk. They were really nasty. Since then, she’d noticed how he seemed to brush up against her whenever he had a chance; he was always touching her. His polite way of seeing her into the van and then getting in himself, which she’d always liked, now seemed polite no more, for she would feel his hand on her arm, or on her thigh as he tucked her coat in to stop it from getting shut in the door. She’d giggled about that sort of thing with other girls at school – groping, they called it – but this wasn’t funny, for it was Uncle Ron who was doing the groping. She couldn’t mention it to her parents; they’d laugh at her, tell her to stop imagining things. She couldn’t tell them about the horrible magazines, either, because she shouldn’t have unlocked that drawer.
She’d stop taking lifts with him. There’d been no more scares in the town and her father would have to relax his rule. Other girls’ fathers weren’t so strict. And she’d look for a new Saturday job. It would be all right if she just kept away from him.
On Tuesday evening, George came home to find three anonymous letters among the mail which had arrived after he left for the office, and which Mrs Pearson had stacked on the hall table. All were obscene. How had people discovered that he was the unnamed man whom the police had interviewed? They must be sick, to write in such terms. He felt sick himself, after reading them.
The previous evening, Dorothea had given him a Mogadon tablet to take when he went to bed; that, on top of the good meal, the whisky and the wine, had been enough to defeat his inner panic, and he had slept well. The day in the office had passed calmly, like the day before; it was strange to move from a world of horror to the normal atmosphere of business, but it would not last if his colleagues discovered he had been held for questioning. Unless the real murderer were soon found, it would be only a short time before the vile letters pursued him to the office. This first batch must be from people in the area who had heard gossip in the village; someone may have seen him in the police car.
He’d told Dorothea that he was surprised Mrs Pearson had turned up for work as usual. Surely the village grapevine would have been busy and she’d have discovered what had happened?
Dorothea had crossed her fingers before replying.
‘Maybe she has heard rumours, George, but your friends will stick by you,’ she said. ‘She’s got too much sense to pay attention to spiteful talk, if there is any. Just hang on. It’ll pass.’ Then she’d asked if he’d told Angela.
George explained that he hadn’t, and that he had made Daniel promise not to do so. In that moment, Dorothea found herself liking George. This awful business, once it was over, might be the making of him. Her mind rushed ahead and she imagined Angela seeking a reconciliation after she had tried her wings in the wider world for a while. But then she looked again at George, with his hangdog expression, and banished the fantasy. He was dreadfully worthy and dull; that wouldn’t alter. Angela wouldn’t return.
She telephoned him on Tuesday evening, and he said he had had some unpleasant letters. Because he sounded upset, Dorothea got out the car and went round, without telling him she was on her way, so that he couldn’t ask her not to come.
The letters were on the coffee table in the sitting room. Dorothea saw block capitals in purple felt-tipped pen and read one before he could prevent her.
‘Oh George! How awful! How cruel!’ she exclaimed. ‘You should burn them. Don’t open any more letters, unless you know what they are. You don’t have to put up with this.’
She was still there when the telephone calls began, and she told him to leave the telephone off the hook. Daniel would get in touch with her, if he wanted his father and could get no reply, as he had before.
18
Dorothea, on her way to the butcher’s two days later, paused to look in the window of Nanron Antiques. There was a small jug on display that had to be Wedgwood black basalt. She went inside.
What had happened between her and Mr Trimm left her mind as she asked him about the jug. His wife had just finished repairing it, it seemed. It was hard to see what she’d done. Ronald told her that Nancy had used one of her mixes; probably, in this case, plaster of Paris and powdered gelatine, to build up the missing lip of the jug. Then she’d painted it. What with, Dorothea wanted to know. She used different things for different items, said Ronald; possibly for this one dry powder paint, mixed with a few drops of varnish, but he wasn’t sure. All that side of things was her department, he said; she was the expert.
‘She’s very skilful,’ said Dorothea. She didn’t like buying mended pieces for her collection, but she had several that had been repaired and this was a pretty jug.
While she examined it, making her mind up, Ronald watched her. He knew what she looked like beneath that expensive tweed skirt and sheepskin coat. She wasn’t always Mrs High-and-Mighty, asking condescending questions, deigning to spend ten or fifteen pounds on a whim in the shop. People in Crowbury would be amazed if they could see her as he had done. He shut his eyes to recall her arms round his neck, the softness of her body.
‘Mr Trimm, are you feeling all right?’ Dorothea asked. ‘You’ve gone quite pale.’
Ronald opened his eyes again.
‘Yes, quite all right, thank you,’ he said.
‘I’ll take the jug,’ said Dorothea. ‘I’ll give you a cheque.’
He watched while she wrote it out, the jug wrapped in tissue paper for her to take away, and he clipped the cheque into the till as she picked up the parcel. His hands behind his back, he bowed her from the shop while he plotted what he would do.
Those other times, best forgotten now, he hadn’t planned well enough. And they were different, those two women – cold, unyielding. Like Nancy, he realised. But Nancy must not be compared with anyone. Some women asked for it, didn’t they? Even from strangers. Mrs Wyatt had asked for it, that first time, then turned proud; well, he’d teach her a lesson.
Maybe afterwards he’d stop thinking so much about Lynn; she was seldom out of his mind for long. She’d been quiet in the van, these last few mornings – had a row with that Peter, maybe. He ached to touch her.
It would have to be done on a Friday, the only night when he needed no elaborate excuse for Nancy.
So, that Friday evening, Ronald went to the telephone box and called Nancy to say he had found a discrepancy in the books and must untangle it. He wanted to clear it that night, however long it took; it didn’t do to hold things over, prolong errors.
Nancy agreed that it must be done, and expressed surprise at what had happened. He was always so careful, she told him; he took such pains.
He’d already done the books and put
them away, before talking to her. Now he could begin. There was no need for mere magazines tonight.
First he went into the Plough. He ordered half a pint and some ham sandwiches to take away. Then he looked round the bar. If she was there, it would be a sign that his plan was meant to succeed. It was because she was in the bar at the Plough, that other time, that it had happened at all.
She was sitting at a table talking to the bank manager, just as she’d been doing the evening it all began. But she wasn’t as far gone, this time. He’d no way of knowing how long she’d stay, but that didn’t matter.
He swallowed his beer, picked up his packet of sandwiches and told the publican he had to go back to his books. Then he left. He’d already taken his black sweater, the hood and the knife from their hiding place under the van seat and put them in his desk. Now he changed into the sweater. He put the knife, his small pencil torch, the hood and the scarf in the pockets of his raincoat, and the tweed hat on his head.
It was lucky that Nancy had never learned to drive, he reflected; she couldn’t come looking for him, checking up on him. Leaving the cellar and lobby lights on, as if he were in fact working at his desk, he went out by the back way and hurried down the road to the Manor House. The van was still parked in Church Lane, if anyone looked.
His luck held, and he met no one. People were eating their meal behind drawn curtains, or watching television, or whatever else they did in the evenings. He’d already noticed how quiet the village was at this hour. Later, people would be leaving the pubs, moving about. But he wouldn’t think about that now; that was for afterwards.
The porch light was on at the Manor House, and the garage doors were open. She’d driven to the Plough again. How lazy she was! She even took the car for her little shopping trips, less than half a mile.
Her headlights would warn him when she was coming back. He’d be waiting – ready. The success of his plan depended on finding a time when she was out, for, as he knew, her door was held on a chain; she’d peered round it when he’d called so filled with hope. He wouldn’t be able to get in by force against that. But he could open that solid, old oak door in her absence, for he’d seen what she did herself.
He went to the water butt, and there, as before, was the large key.
He let himself in, then locked the door again from inside. Swiftly he walked through the house to the back door. Like the woman’s in Fletcham, it was bolted from inside. He undid it, let himself out, closing the door to keep in the snug warmth of the well-heated house, and hurried round the side of the house to the water butt. He had to use his small torch but did it with care. He put the key back in its hiding place; then, before entering the house again by the back door, he took off his raincoat and tweed hat, and hid them under a bush, as he had in Fletcham.
As soon as he was back in the house, he put on his hood and the scarf; he was already wearing his gloves. He held the knife in his hand, the blade out ready. He’d wondered where to wait for her. That other time, she’d gone straight to where she kept her drink. She might do that again, not go upstairs at first.
There was plenty of space behind the long curtains in Dorothea’s sitting room. He could watch the room through a chink between them, and he’d see the lights of the car without being seen, for the window looked out at the side of the house.
He might have to wait some time for her, but he didn’t mind that. He felt quite safe, standing there, thinking only of how he would surprise her.
Dorothea was tempted to have another drink. She’d already had three, or was it four? But the bank manager had left soon after she joined him at his table, and there was no one she felt able to talk to. She was not drawn to the group of younger people by the bar counter. Her lack of an escort made her feel self-conscious and uncomfortable; she must either drink more, to overcome such sensations, or she must leave.
This time, she chose to go.
During the short trip home, she switched on the car radio.
She did not like the silence after she had turned it off, got out of the car, and was locking up the dark garage with the chain and padlock, the key of which she kept on a ring with her car keys. But the porch light fanned out over the gravel sweep and she knew that, although the curtains were drawn across most of the windows, the lights were on inside the house. She went to the water butt, groped beneath it, and found the large key.
As she opened the front door, she could hear the radio playing light music, quite loudly. Once in the house, she turned the key in the front door from the inside, shot the bolts, and put up the chain. She stood in the hall for a moment, shoulders sagging. What now? There was no Harry, sitting in his study reading, or calling out to ask her if she’d like a drink.
But a drink was easily available. After a while, it would bring the familiar numbing of her pain. She would never get used to it; she would never stop missing Harry, looking for him in the chair he often used, thinking she saw him walking across the garden, imagining she heard his footsteps coming into the kitchen while she was preparing a meal, putting his arms around her while she worked, even after so many years, and kissing her.
She shivered, standing in the hall.
Other women had to cope with this, this sudden solitude; it was a fact of modern life that women, in the main, outlived men.
You did too much for me, Harry, she condemned him silently; you were too good, too kind. I’m too old to cope alone.
But she wasn’t old – not yet.
Upstairs were the Mogadon tablets, plenty of them in a bottle. She’d thought of it before – of swallowing them, of quitting. But poor Susan and poor Mark, if she were to do it; they’d feel guilty, fearing they had failed her. She mustn’t let despair defeat her.
She took off her coat and laid it, with her gloves and handbag, on a chair in the hall. Then she went to pour herself a drink. She took it into the sitting room, passing close to the curtain which concealed Ronald as she crossed to the hearth to make up the fire. She stoked it up well, building logs across it, putting small nuggets of coal beneath them.
Ronald opened the curtains a fraction to watch her. He saw her bending down, moving; he saw the glass on the floor beside her. He stepped back sharply as she stood up, but she was still turned away from him. She straightened the pile of glossy magazines on the sofa table, and moved a small porcelain vase that held winter sweet and yellow jasmine into a better position.
Dorothea, her hand still on the vase, remembered that she had always planted bulbs in bowls when Harry was alive – hyacinths and daffodils. Somehow she’d never had the heart to do it since.
The room was warm, but she felt suddenly cold, shivering as she had done in the hall. She crossed her arms over her body, hugging herself, shuddering.
Food. That was what she needed. She hadn’t had much lunch – a few drinks and some bread and cheese – and she’d forgotten to plan anything for this evening. She should have pulled a chop or something out of the freezer earlier.
Taking her glass with her, she went away to the kitchen. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d grilled a rigid chop.
When she had gone from the room, Ronald slipped out of his hiding place. Was she upstairs? If so, he’d follow her.
He went into the hall, hesitating. Then he heard sounds from the back of the house – another radio, relaying a different programme from the one in the sitting room. He moved down the passage. The kitchen door was open and he caught sight of her moving back and forth across the room. She might see him, if she turned, and he would lose his chance of surprising her; besides, it could not happen in the kitchen. There must be some soft surface on which they could both lie, preferably her bed.
She’d built up the fire and left the lights on in the sitting room; she must mean to return there. Would she go upstairs first?
He retreated into the doorway of the sitting room and, as he did so, Dorothea came out of the kitchen, crossed the hall and went into the downstairs cloakroom.
When she emerged
, her chop was grilling and her frozen peas were boiling nicely. I’m getting quite like George, she thought; I’ll be having boil-in-the bag meals soon. It might be no bad plan to have a few in stock.
Ronald, heart excitedly thumping, had peered in through the kitchen door while Dorothea was in the cloakroom, and he saw her preparations. There was a tray on the worktop near the stove. Where would she eat her meal? In the dining room?
He went back to the sitting room, hovering in the doorway, his knife, the blade extended, in his hand, wondering what to do. Then he heard the kitchen radio snap off.
He was back behind his curtain in seconds, his breath held as Dorothea came into the room carrying her tray.
She stopped for a moment just inside the doorway, looking round. Once again she felt shivery. I must be getting a cold, she thought, moving on again, setting her tray down on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
She picked up the newspaper that lay on the sofa and glanced at it; perhaps there would be something worth watching on television, though Friday was notoriously a poor night. Television was better company than the radio; you could at least look at the news readers, for example, and pretend that you were not alone.
She switched off the radio and turned on the big colour set; then she turned off the main light in the room, so that it was illuminated only by the lamp on a small table at one end of the sofa. She stacked some cushions as a back-rest, kicked off the shoes for which she had exchanged her boots while she was in the cloakroom, and arranged herself on the sofa, feet up, to begin her meal.
Ronald could see her quite well from his place behind the curtain. There was a bottle of wine on the tray. He felt no hunger himself, though he had not eaten for hours; he had thrown his package of sandwiches in the dustbin.
He waited, watching her.
It had begun on the sofa that other time. Perhaps it could happen there now. She’d want it, even though, like the others, she would be frightened. He wanted to frighten her; she had to be punished for turning him down. It was her fault that he had had to hunt elsewhere; it was her fault that other stupid woman had died.
Hand of Death Page 16
