by Gregson, J M
‘But she kept you on. Or did Mr Pritchard intervene on your behalf.’
Smith looked shocked. ‘Oh no! She never mentioned the sack to me. By the end of the afternoon, she agreed she should really have told me about the seedlings when she set me to weeding.’
Hook appeared in the doorway, his reddish face a picture of urgency. ‘We’ve got to go, sir.’
Lambert said to Smith, ‘When are you due at The Beeches next, Everton?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Right. We’ll see you there. Try to think of anything that might be connected with Mrs Pritchard’s death. Anyone you saw around the place. Anything you might have heard.’
In the narrow street outside, Hook said, ‘It was Chris Rushton from the station. You know Pritchard told us that his wife was going out to choir practice at the Cathedral on two evenings a week?’
‘Yes. Chris was checking out to see if she had any close friends there.’
‘He did that. He found that she resigned her membership over a year ago.’
Lambert whistled, almost silently. It was a situation they met often enough, most usually among philandering men. This time it was a murdered woman, in the last months of her life. ‘So who was she meeting twice a week without her husband’s knowledge?’
Chapter Eight
Mark Warner found that his wife did not seem very upset about her mother’s death.
He had never been sure how close mother and daughter were. In fact, he underestimated the effect of his wife’s closeness to himself: Laura Pritchard’s antipathy to him had coloured any affection her daughter felt towards her. Joyce Warner had never been in doubt that her loyalties lay with her husband; she had sided firmly with him in every dispute between Laura and her son-in-law.
The older woman had relaxed with her daughter in the presence of her grandchildren, but even here her love had manifested itself rather as the pride of a matriarch than that of a doting grandmother. She had rarely played with young Katie or Tim, nor could Mark remember her changing a nappy. She had read four-year-old Katie a bedtime story just once, and had never baby-sat for them. Yet in her slightly distant way Laura had seemed fond enough of the children; she had watched their play in the garden with an affectionate smile and spoken of their future with eager anticipation. Perhaps she would have been happier with older children. Now that would never be tested.
Mark had felt guilty that he should feel only a rising elation with the confirmation of Laura Pritchard’s death, and had taken pains to compose himself before he went into his house to confirm to Joyce that the corpse he had been to see was indeed that of Laura Pritchard.
It seemed that he need not have worried. Joyce embraced him for a long, wordless moment when he said that the body was her mother’s. Then she said quietly, ‘I knew it was her. The policewoman more or less told me that it was her when she came. I’m not going to cry, Mark: I was reconciled to her death before you went there. Thank you for protecting me from that.’
And they spoke no more about it, even when the children were in bed and they sat in armchairs before a television picture which neither of them really saw. Later that night they made love, gently, with an unhurried relish of each other’s bodies. It was not at all like the passionate escapism into which they had lately thrown themselves, as the Warner Plastics business fell into ever more desperate straits. This death and its discovery had brought a relaxation, not a tension, between them.
Mark woke at six to a bright summer morning, with the sun already lighting the bedroom through the thin curtains. He looked at the wife who slept beside him. During his angrier exchanges with his mother-in-law, he had sometimes revelled in the fact that Joyce looked so unlike her mother. Joyce was small and neat, with a face that was pretty but determined, framed by short, blue-black hair. She had the small features which often age quickly when the first lines appear, but he thought the cares of motherhood had in fact improved her face, giving it depth and character. Her forehead wrinkled appealingly whenever she thought hard, but in sleep it was relaxed and smooth. With her pointed chin below the straight, almost motionless mouth, she looked as innocent and as devoid of cares as a child.
Mark Warner lay for another hour and more beside her, but he did not go to sleep again. He was wondering how to ask the question which preoccupied him. It was a delicate one to put to Joyce at this stage, but much depended on the answer to it. She would know its importance as well as he did — he had never kept the details of his work from his wife, as some men did.
He need not have worried. She put the question herself over the breakfast table. ‘How long do you think it will take to clear mother’s will for probate?’ she said.
He was at once surprised and pleased by her directness. ‘I don’t know, love. We can phone the solicitors and find out. Or it might be better for you to go in to the office to see them, if you feel up to it. It would be better if you did it than me, since you’re going to be the beneficiary.’
Joyce’s forehead puckered in the little mannerism which so delighted him; in moments of extreme perplexity, her small nose wrinkled a little in sympathy as she pushed out her top lip as an aid to thought, and he found the effect as gratifying as he had done for the last twelve years. ‘I’ll go in and see them this morning, when Katie’s at play school. I’ll take Tim in with me — that should ensure that I’m not kept waiting very long!’
Mark found himself slightly disturbed that she should show so little emotion about her dead mother. At first it had been a relief, but he was a conventional man, and he was beginning to feel that propriety demanded some manifestation of grief from a daughter. Was she putting on a brave front for him? Would she collapse into tears when he had gone off to work?
She said, ‘I’ll have to ring Jim Pritchard, if he doesn’t contact me. He must be back from his golfing holiday by now.’ She had never got used to calling her mother’s second husband by anything other than his name. ‘We’ll need to discuss funeral arrangements, I suppose.’
Mark said awkwardly, ‘There’ll have to be an inquest, I imagine. But you may not need to appear, as it will be me who has to give evidence of identification.’
For the first time that morning, she looked ruffled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose they’ll need to establish whether it was suicide or accidental death. Did the police give you any idea what they thought about that?’
Her eyes were wide, the near-black pupils sparkling in the bright morning light of the east-facing room. It was the first time he realized how little she perhaps knew of the details of her mother’s death — they had not even discussed it on the previous night. Could she really know so little? Suddenly, he wanted to protect her, but he could see no way to wrap up the harsh fact. ‘I’m afraid the police believe your mother was murdered, Joyce.’ The very word seemed brutal, but he could think of no way of avoiding it.
She did not seem shocked as she nodded her understanding. ‘The police didn’t tell me that when they came to say she was dead. I suppose they wanted to protect me.’ She smiled a little at the thought, as though she was immensely experienced in the ways of the world. Mark found her expression disturbing, though he could not have said why.
She said, ‘I suppose I should have expected them to say, “Foul play is not suspected’ if they had not thought that someone had killed her. That’s what they say, isn’t it?’
‘I think so, yes.’ He was surprised anew at her composure. Perhaps it was merely a manifestation of shock. She seemed much more in control of the situation than he was, when he had expected to be providing support and consolation. He took her hands in his across the table, pausing a moment to listen to his son burbling happily in the other part of the L-shaped room. ‘Would you like me to stay with you this morning? I can ring in and tell them to —’
‘No, you must go in. Of course you must.’
Her earnest face seemed suddenly anxious that he should leave her. Perhaps, if she was being brave, she needed to be alone wi
th her grief. He said, ‘All right, if you’re sure,’ hoping that he did not sound too eager. In truth, he could not wait to get to work, to begin to ease the business out of the straitjacket which debt had imposed upon it over the last few awful months. He was already fantasizing about the interview he would have with Cummins at the bank, when the funds released by Laura Pritchard’s death became available to him.
He had the BMW out of the garage and was away within five minutes. His wife watched him affectionately as he went, amused by his guilt at his desire to be away and making things happen. It was his enthusiasm for his work which was one of his most attractive qualities to her, but he never seemed to realize that.
She did not cry, as Mark had thought she might. She dressed Katie and Tim, and delivered her daughter to play school. Once she was back in the house, she rang the solicitor, as she had promised her husband she would, and made an appointment for that afternoon.
It was the middle of the morning when the phone call she had been waiting for came. When the caller announced himself, Joyce wasted no time on preliminaries. She said, ‘She’s been found. After she’d been in the river for a week and more. The police were round here yesterday. They got Mark to identify her, not me.’
The voice on the other end of the line said, ‘That must have been a relief for you.’ She tried unsuccessfully to detect whether there was an irony beneath the words; the tone was even, flat, scarcely interested.
She said, ‘She was — damaged, apparently. With being in the water for so long. The police seem to be convinced it’s murder. Have they managed to contact you?’
‘No. Not so far.’
‘You must keep away from here.’
‘All right. The police will come to see you, you know. Now that they’ve established it’s murder, you’re bound to be a suspect.’ The voice was as emotionless as ever — as if matricide was of no more consequence than a cracked window or a broken bottle. She was used to that in him, though. Love made you make all sorts of allowances.
Catching the note of her caller, she said evenly, ‘I shall be ready for them.’
She put the receiver down and stared at it for a moment. A small smile crept on to her face, whether of amusement or affection it was impossible to tell. Perhaps it was a combination of the two.
*
When Mark Warner went into his office, he caught his secretary hastily thrusting a newspaper into her bag. The news of Laura Pritchard’s death was already public. The sub-editors would not risk the word ‘murder’ until after the inquest, but they did wonders with adjectives like ‘mysterious’ and ‘brutal’, and Laura Pritchard’s position as a successful businesswoman ensured that she made the headlines in death as she never had in life. A whiff of money about a violent death was the next best thing to a whiff of sex; presently, the copy suggested subtly, there might be both involved in this one.
The order from Collinsons had finally been confirmed: it seemed an omen of the happier times which lay ahead for Warner Plastics. He busied himself with calculations of the difference his mother-in-law’s money would make when it released them from debt and the crippling interest rates which had so nearly brought the business down.
Joe Brown came in to see Mark about work schedules, his rolling gait proclaiming that he still saw himself as senior foreman rather than director. Mark said they no longer needed to consider laying people off. He made no attempt to discuss the buoyancy which he knew was evident this morning in his every move. He hoped it did not strike his work force as unseemly in the face of his bereavement. No doubt they would be too glad of any signs of optimism in the boss to be critical.
He put off his phone call to the bank, postponing the pleasure like a man refusing a drink until he had earned it. It was coffee-time before he asked his secretary to put him through to the manager. He found the breezy tone he wanted came to him without much effort. ‘I thought I should keep you in the picture, Mr Cummins,’ he said, calling up a phrase the banker had used to him in the past. ‘It’s about that infusion of capital which you refused me yesterday. It looks as if I shall shortly be able to secure it from another source.’
Cummins said he was happy to hear it. He did not sound at all happy.
Mark said, ‘I’m just ringing to let you know that we shall be clearing the bulk of our debts in the near future. I shall be in to see you when I know the details and can make the time. We’re very busy here at the moment.’
Cummins congratulated him anaemically and said that of course he would be happy to see him whenever it was convenient. His puzzlement came down the line; perhaps he had not seen the papers, or did not know the relationship of Laura Pritchard with Mark Warner. Eventually, he tried to pull himself together. ‘This is good news indeed. Perhaps when the economic climate permits a further stage of development for Warner Plastics, we might discuss how the bank might best provide support.’
Mark said, ‘Perhaps we might, indeed. But of course I should have to remember just how anxious you were to help us yesterday.’ He was not a vindictive man, but he not only permitted himself that closing barb, he also enjoyed it.
He was still savouring the moment when his secretary ushered in the two large men who seemed suddenly to fill his small, unpretentious office. One of them was tall and lean, with a good head of grizzled curly hair; the other burly, on the fringe of corpulence, with a cheerful, weather-beaten face and bright blue eyes. The tall man said, ‘I’m Detective Superintendent Lambert and this is Detective Sergeant Hook. We are pursuing inquiries into the death of Laura Pritchard.’
Mark nodded and asked them to sit down. He had expected this, but he felt his pulse quicken with the arrival of these men. His voice was dry and a little unsteady as he said, ‘I identified the body yesterday. It was — well, not very easy. But it was Mrs Pritchard.’
Lambert nodded. ‘Yes. Mrs Pritchard’s dentist confirmed that very promptly from his records. We like to be absolutely sure, in cases like this. That isn’t meant to throw any doubt on your integrity, of course.’ He looked at Warner directly and without embarrassment. ‘I have to tell you that this is now a murder inquiry.’
‘May I ask why you are so certain of that?’ Mark managed a nervous smile.
‘Mrs Pritchard had been dead for some time before she entered the water. She was strangled, with some kind of ligature. She was almost certainly attacked from behind by her killer, with a piece of rope or wire.’ Lambert’s tone was unemotional as he threw out the details. In a murder investigation, there was little room to protect the sensitivities of relatives who were also suspects. Their reactions to the details of murder were often interesting, as they were in this case.
Warner’s blue eyes widened, and he sat down abruptly in the chair on the other side of his desk. He seemed taken aback that they should already know so much; whether he was dismayed that they should do so was not apparent. He was certainly surprised that they should reveal their knowledge so readily to him. ‘Have you any — any idea who did this?’
Lambert smiled. ‘You will understand that I could not reveal that to you, even if we did. But no, at the moment, we have no definite suspect for this killing. What we have to do is to build up the fullest possible picture of the victim. And of her relationships with those around her. That is why we are here, Mr Warner.’ Delivering the routine statement in a monotone, he yet contrived to make it sound menacing.
Mark said, ‘I won’t be able to help you much there, I’m afraid. Mrs Pritchard and I were not close.’ The words came easily enough; he wondered after he had delivered them if they made him sound heartless, or even guilty. These two men were used to such issues; they suddenly seemed to him to be at a tremendous advantage.
Lambert said, ‘Mrs Pritchard’s disappearance was not reported to us by the family. That is not unprecedented, but it is unusual.’
The superintendent’s tone was carefully neutral and Warner did not take the comment as a criticism. He nodded and said, ‘Her husband was away, of course, so he w
ould not even know that she was missing. Joyce would have expected to be in contact with her mother by phone, but we wouldn’t see anything particularly significant if we couldn’t get through. Who was it reported her as missing?’
Hook looked at his notes. ‘A Miss Hendry, who worked for your mother-in-law in Worcester. That was on Tuesday of last week.’
Warner nodded. ‘I suppose she realized something was wrong when Laura didn’t go in to work. We didn’t have any arrangements to meet her, you see, so we didn’t realize she was missing until the police asked us on Tuesday night if we knew anything about her movements.’
They checked when he had last seen Laura Pritchard. It had been with his wife, he said, on the Wednesday before her disappearance, three days before Jim Pritchard had left for his golfing holiday in Spain. That Saturday seemed so far to be the last time when she had been known to be alive. Lambert did most of the talking, with his eyes constantly on the man he questioned; that steady grey stare began to seem to Warner like an examination in itself. The other one — Sergeant Hook was it? — was noting his answers in a round, surprisingly swift hand in his black notebook.
It was Hook who now looked up and said, ‘And you haven’t been to The Beeches since then?’
‘No. I wouldn’t have gone there on my own.’
Mark had rehearsed all this. It should have been straightforward, but he was perturbed to note how rapidly his heart beat as he gave his replies. They asked him if he knew of anyone who might have wished to harm Laura Pritchard, and he pretended to consider the matter carefully before he shook his head. ‘No, not that I know of. She was a forceful woman, who did not trouble to conceal her opinions, but I don’t know of any real enemies. She had her own business, of course, and I have no knowledge of that or the people who worked with her. And she had her hobbies, like the choir — I suppose there will be another circle of acquaintances there.’
Lambert nodded. There was no reason to tell this man that she had not been near the choir for a year and more. He said, ‘What would you say was your own relationship with Laura Pritchard, Mr Warner?’
