‘But you were married to the victim, Mr Crowley. Did you go to the solicitor you had before you left to get your last ship? He might well be able to help you.’
‘I’m Darla’s next of kin. I need the deeds to that house. And her will if she made one and I doubt she did that.’
Dan pushed his chair back a bit. ‘Surely you bought the house together? Didn’t you make sure you knew all the details? Did you keep a copy of the deed in the house, perhaps, and you’ve forgotten?’
‘I’ve never been in the place … The, er, sale was still being seen to after I left.’
‘You, sir, are a disgrace. A disgrace.’ Harriet Burke marched her sensible lace-ups, encased in sturdy plastic drizzle boots, across the dusty floorboards. ‘How dare you heckle a fine man like Detective Chief Inspector Dan O’Reilly. And you’re a liar, my man. You are here about the possessions of that poor young woman, Darla Crowley. And if she was your wife, I’m sorry for her – even more sorry than I was before I set eyes on you.’
Dan cleared his throat. He smiled, very slightly, at Harriet and held up a hand to calm her.
The effect she had on Vince was startling. He had straightened away from the desk, stepped back, and regarded the woman with his mouth open.
Mary Burke, thumping the rubber tip on her cane onto the floor, approached more slowly to join her sister. ‘Every word Harriet says is true, you reprobate. It’s because of so-called men like you that we’re watching a generation of sloppy, pot-smoking, thieving, bottom-crack displaying hoodlums grow up. With their hands held out for what they’re not prepared to work for, may I add.’
‘Bravo, Mary,’ Harriet said and put the gloved fingers of one hand over her mouth.
‘This one wants his dead wife’s possessions,’ Mary said. ‘And look at him. A strapping fellow who shouldn’t need anything from anyone. And, he was a wife-beater, mind you. Worse than that – he burned his wife with cigarettes!’
Dan shot from his chair. ‘Ladies, we need a private chat. Detective Constable Liberty, kindly take the Misses Burke to our interview room and get them a cup of tea.’
‘I don’t think you murdered your wife, Mr Crowley,’ Mary said, undaunted. ‘You’d probably be too afraid to do something to her that couldn’t be kept hidden.’
Crowley seemed to shrink inside his pea coat. He pulled up his collar and went to the door. ‘I’ll be back, mind you,’ he said before walking out. ‘I’ve got a right to get information about my wife.’
‘Oh, dear,’ Mary said. ‘I didn’t know I had it in me but I’m glad I did. That man is a toad. We’d love that cup of tea, please, but we don’t need an interview. We only came to find out where Winifred’s Lillie Belle is and if we can have her to take care of. It’s the least we can do for dear Winifred.’
THIRTY-ONE
The drive to Gloucester had been made in near silence. Gladys had asked Alex and Lily to take her and Alex, although deeply sad and sickened at the thought of going to the morgue for Winifred Sibley’s identification, had not expected quite such a miserable journey.
They entered the building she wished she could forget, and immediately saw Dan O’Reilly and Bill Lamb hovering ahead of them.
‘I’m not talking to them.’ Gladys broke the silence, her voice a weak squeal. ‘You came with me. There’s no need for them to be here. I don’t want anyone to see me with them. If they stay, I’ll leave now.’
Lily raised her brows at Alex who sucked in the corners of her mouth and said nothing. She didn’t know what to say.
‘If they try to leave here with me, I won’t have it.’ Gladys grasped Alex’s arm with a shaking hand. ‘Tell them to stay away from me. All they bring is trouble. They’re dangerous.’
‘I’ll have a word,’ Alex said, completely bemused by Gladys’s outburst. ‘Stay here.’
She left her mother with Gladys and walked rapidly ahead to the two detectives. ‘Don’t ask me what the deal is, but Gladys is having a fit just at the sight of you. She says she won’t stay unless you leave and if you try to be with her when she’s ready to leave, well, I don’t know. But it might be better to do as she asks. What you do later is something I can’t control. I don’t want to control that or anything else about this fiasco. It’s awful.’
Dan’s hand on her shoulder was unexpected but she didn’t let herself stiffen. ‘OK, Alex. Thank you for doing this. Could you do something else for us?’
‘I will if I can.’ Anything – just let this be over.
He smiled, reminding her of how charming he could be. ‘Please would you listen to what’s said and let us know? I doubt if there’ll be anything, but just in case. And remind me to tell you about the visit we got from Harriet and Mary a couple of hours ago. It was something else. Vince Crowley, Darla’s husband, came into the parish hall with demands and the ladies let him know why he had no right to ask for anything. And one of the reasons they gave was something they should not have known. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough.’
Alex grinned, she couldn’t help it. ‘I think I feel sorry for him.’
‘We’ll be in touch later then,’ Dan said, patting that shoulder.
‘Thank you, Alex,’ Bill said sincerely, and the two of them walked away in the opposite direction.
For a minute or two Alex stood still. She had the feeling she’d just been bamboozled by two of the best bamboozlers.
When she turned around, Lily was walking Gladys toward her and a mortuary attendant appeared from one of the rooms. She approached, her green boots squeaking on the linoleum floor, pulling off long rubber gloves as she came.
‘Mrs Lymer?’ she asked. ‘One of you is Mrs Lymer?’
‘I am,’ Gladys said, fiddling with a button on her blue wool overcoat. ‘I think I need to wait a minute. I’m all sixes and sevens.’
‘Take your time,’ the attendant said. ‘Would you like to sit down?’
Gladys shook her head, no. ‘Nothing to be gained by that. I’m ready.’
Through the door the woman had used, then past a pair of swinging doors and they were immediately upon a gurney carrying an unmistakable sheet-draped form. Gladys let out a high-pitched, ‘Oh,’ and stood still.
Alex couldn’t move, but at least Lily seemed calm and rubbed Gladys’s back, murmuring softly to her.
‘Are you ready to do this?’ the attendant asked.
Gladys nodded but didn’t move closer. The sheet was lowered, revealing Winifred’s head held up on an autopsy neck prop. There was no way to lessen the impact of the damage to her head and face.
‘Winnie!’ was the only sound Gladys made. She nodded again in response to the attendant’s question about the identity, but suddenly moved to the dead woman’s side.
Alex made a move to join her but Lily held her back.
‘Winnie, it’s my fault,’ Gladys said, making a choking sound between each word. ‘It’s because of me. I should be there, not you. Oh, Winnie, I didn’t know they’d do this.’
She touched her dead friend’s cheek, turned, and collapsed.
Tony took off his oilskin coat and threw it across a chair in one of the hospital’s family waiting rooms. ‘You have to be knackered,’ he told Alex. ‘When was the last time you slept?’
‘The last time you slept,’ she said, eyes closed, legs stretched out in front of her on a chair in the corner.
His dad had taken Lily home and Tony was glad. He wanted to concentrate on Alex.
‘Do you know what’s happening now, sweetheart?’ he asked her.
She opened those very green eyes, a bit bloodshot now. ‘They put Gladys in a bed and she slept for a couple of hours. Frank came to be with her. I know Dan was going to question her. I’ve also known there was something strange going on with Gladys but not how strange. I still don’t, but I know I was right. Now we’re just supposed to wait. You should be at home sleeping.’
‘Not without you.’
She smiled and closed her eyes again. ‘It’s ugly and getting ugl
ier. I wish I could figure out how it all goes together – if it does.’
‘Why can’t I take you home? They can get in touch later.’
‘The pace is picking up. They were adamant I had to wait here. Gladys said some troubling things and I had no choice but to pass them on to the police. Bill Lamb came and said something about arranging for Gladys and me to talk again. I hate it all.’
A tap on the door preceded LeJuan Harding. He showed no sign of being stressed but he was serious when he came into the room. ‘Lily left?’
‘She went home with Doc Harrison,’ Alex said, sitting upright in her chair. ‘Why?’
LeJuan appeared to consider what to say next. He looked at the windows where rain was striking the panes again, blurring the dark and laden skies outside. ‘We’ve got issues with Mrs Lymer,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Why do they paint these rooms puke green? Is it supposed to calm people?’
‘Probably.’ Tony smiled and didn’t comment on the change in subject.
‘It makes me jumpy, or it would if I got jumpy.’ They were treated to a LeJuan grin. ‘Gladys Lymer is not going to talk to a detective unless we slip her a truth serum. She won’t even look at any of us. Either we stayed out of her room or she was leaving, with or without permission. She wants you and Lily. End of story. Are you up for it if she’ll talk to you on your own?’
‘I suppose so. Yes, yes, of course I am, but won’t you eventually need to get a statement out of her somehow?’
‘It would be easier but there are ways around these things.’
Alex got up. Even as a skinny kid the mean kids had picked on, she had been composed. She looked composed now but Tony questioned how she felt inside. She was looking at him as if she wanted to ask a question she wasn’t sure how to word.
‘Gladys will be glad to have you with her,’ he told her, partly to move things along. ‘If she wants Lily here before she says whatever’s on her mind, I can run in and get your mum. Or Dad will bring her back.’
Alex nodded and said, ‘Let’s get on with it. Gladys probably wants to talk about Winifred again. That was a horrible thing – seeing Winifred, and watching Gladys’s meltdown.’ She closed her eyes briefly, then went to the door. ‘If we have to get Mum I’ll send a message.’
LeJuan followed her out and Tony took a chair into the corridor. From there he could see the entrance to Gladys’s room. Given the bed shortage, keeping her there was a stretch and probably Dan O’Reilly’s doing.
LeJuan hovered until Alex went into the room before returning to Tony. ‘My boss wanted me to ask you exactly what Alex said about going over to the Knighton estate. Is there something else he ought to know?’
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Tony stood up. ‘You’re not really asking if I’d be prepared to repeat something Alex told me in confidence.’
‘If it related to something she heard said in the carriage house while she was lurking about outside, I am.’
‘Lurking?’ He gave the word a moment to hang. ‘Do you see Alex as the type to lurk, sergeant? If you want to pursue that line of questioning you’ll have to talk to the lady yourself. Good luck with that.’
‘My Frank says I should be able to go home if I want to.’
‘Do you want to?’ Alex said. ‘Before they’re sure you’re well enough. You were unconscious for a bit, Gladys.’
Fully dressed, Gladys sat in a chair beside a bed. ‘I did ask for Lily to come as well. I need to talk to both of you.’
‘Doc took her home but we can get her back if that’s what you want. I’m glad to be here with you, though.’
‘We had a shock,’ the woman said. ‘All of us. Let Lily be. You can tell her what I’m going to say. I’m going to try not to ramble but it’s a long story, Alex. I haven’t done right by you and Lily and being sorry isn’t going to make it any better.’
‘Say what you think matters. I don’t mind how long it takes. We’ve got to get whatever it is cleared up.’
Gladys pushed her hair back from her eyes. ‘I suppose the first thing is the night someone took me out of the parking lot behind the Black Dog. If I had told you the truth right afterward and something was done about it, maybe Winifred would still be alive.’ Tears welled. ‘They gagged me with something and put a bag over my head. I heard something crash down which I realized the next day was my bike. Off I went in the dark. Couldn’t make a sound. I banged myself up when I was put in the car, I can tell you.’ She pushed up a cardigan sleeve to display bruises turning from black to green and yellow. ‘I struggled but it didn’t make any difference. Hurt my knees, too. It was high off the ground – the car or truck or whatever was high off the ground, I mean. I hit my knees when they pushed me in.’
Alex’s hand went to her mouth. ‘What did the nurses say about those bruises?’
‘I wouldn’t take my clothes off. Not me. Not when they’d ask all sorts of questions. There’s more bruises on my hip and ribs. And a big blood blister on my side. I couldn’t do anything to help myself. Not that I should be complaining when Winifred’s lying dead down there.’ The tears slid down her cheeks now. ‘We drove but I didn’t know where – or I didn’t until they pushed me out of the car. I went down on my hands and knees and I heard them drive off. Then I managed to get the bag off and I was only a little way from home, but I’ve never been terrified before I was in that car, not like that. She said I wasn’t doing what we’d agreed and she wasn’t putting up with it.’
‘She? You said, she. This was a woman who did this?’
‘I think so. And she was strong. They say if you’re mad enough you’re strong enough and I suppose that’s what it was. She didn’t make any bones about it. She was going to make sure I did as I was supposed to and that meant I wasn’t to talk to anyone about the things she’d had me do for her.’
‘Did you know her voice?’
‘She sort of whispered. A loud whisper. But I would know that voice now. You won’t know who I mean but it was Beverly Irving. Your mum was staying with her when she was expecting you and afterwards for quite a bit. But something happened between them, at least I decided that’s what it was. They fell out. Lily had been to the Folly and Underhill area while she was in school still. The year before she hoped to go to university. For a summer camp, she told me, that’s why she was here. She liked it and decided she’d take you to Underhill and see if she could find somewhere cheap enough to live. I don’t have to tell you it’s a lot cheaper than Folly itself. And she got a flat in a little house next to where we were then. It was lovely having a young person and a baby nearby, I can tell you. Lily got a job at the Black Dog. But that’s when I met Beverly Irving.’
‘She went to Underhill?’ Lily had never suggested Beverly had been there.
‘No. Oh, no. She must have had help finding out about the people who lived near Lily and settled on me. Which doesn’t make me feel good if it was because she decided I was easy to control. I went to Burford each Thursday for a meeting with some other women. We just drank coffee and chatted really. That was something else she found out. Then she made sure she ran into me in the street there, and started talking like we were old friends. I thought I must have forgotten her or something. But she said she knew about me, that’s how she put it, and she said she had something important to say about Lily and you and would I go in for a cup of tea with her. I thought I’d better do it in case Lily might need to know about her. And she did need to, but Beverly made sure she sucked me in and then I was afraid to tell Lily because I was in the wrong, see.’
Responses weren’t coming easily to Alex. ‘We all do things we aren’t proud of.’
‘We didn’t have much money,’ Gladys said, rubbing her palms together until they squeaked. ‘Frank didn’t have a trade. Neither did I, really. But I kept working for other people. Cleaning, that sort of thing. Beverly knew that. One time when we met – she would make sure she saw me about once a month – she gave me some money. It was more than I could earn in a month. She i
nsisted she knew we were having a hard time and said she could afford it. It was to help because I looked after you sometimes so Lily could do what she needed to do, that’s what she said. Beverly knew I wouldn’t take money from Lily for babysitting because she was struggling. Anyway, I never had babies of my own so I loved it when Lily let me have you for a bit. Why did I take that money? It was so wrong and look what it’s done.’
‘When was the last time you saw Beverly?’ Alex hoped Gladys gave the right answer.
‘Years and years ago. She started just calling instead of visiting.’
‘I did know about Beverly,’ Alex said, aware that she was deliberately avoiding mentioning the woman’s death in case Gladys stopped talking. ‘Mum told me.’ And that much was true.
‘Ah.’ Gladys looked away. ‘Beverly asked questions about you and your mum. She pushed and it made me anxious, but I thought when you were a bit older Beverly wouldn’t ask me anymore, but she kept on and sometimes I knew what she wanted to know was too personal. But I didn’t expect her to turn crazy on me like she did. Telling me to get a job at the Black Dog and let her know everything you and Lily did, or as much as I could. It made me feel sick.’
Why hadn’t Gladys refused? ‘Were you always afraid of her?’
‘Once before I tried to stop doing it and a dead crow was left on our front step. I knew what it meant. I’d get punished if I stopped telling Beverly things. Then, after she made me go to your place to work and I told her a few things, I asked if I could stop. Now you know what happened to me after that. It was so horrible.’
‘You knew how dangerous she was after that.’
Gladys looked close to tears again. She nodded and blotted her face with tissues.
‘You could have gone to the police—’
‘No! She told me she’d know if I did that and I’d be sorry for the rest of my life. Like I’m sorry now because of Winifred.’
Whisper the Dead Page 22
