Wake the Dead

by Dorothy Simpson

  Thanet rose. ‘Well, thank you for being so patient, sir.’

  ‘What now, Inspector?’

  ‘First, I’d like to change. Sergeant Lineham has brought me more suitable clothes.’

  ‘There’s a bathroom next door.’

  ‘And then I’d like a word with your wife and your aunt. I must check if they saw anything suspicious during the afternoon. They’ll have had a little time to compose themselves and think about it.’

  If he was right, and one of the members of Mrs Fairleigh’s family had seized the opportunity to finish her off, the circle of suspects was small: Fairleigh himself, his aunt, his wife.

  He was eager to find out what the other two had to say for themselves.

  FOUR

  The clothes fitted reasonably well and, feeling more comfortable now, Thanet emerged from the bathroom to find Fairleigh and Lineham waiting for him in the corridor outside. Fairleigh led them to a door which opened on to a broad landing in the main house with a white-painted balustrade overlooking the spacious hall below. The carpet was soft, the walls hung with prints and paintings, the air faintly scented by a huge bowl of pot-pourri on a sidetable and the fresh flowers in an arrangement near the top of the curving staircase. The effect was of carefully maintained luxury. Samantha was evidently an efficient housekeeper.

  Fairleigh led them down the stairs and across the hall.

  ‘In here,’ he said, pushing open a door.

  The room was large, square and elegant and seemed to swim in a dim, sub-aqueous light. The curtains, drawn for the afternoon against prying eyes, had been pulled back only a few inches and the delicate greens, turquoises and creams of curtains and upholstery melted into each other, blurring the outlines of the furniture. The shadowy forms of the three women in the room briefly lost definition as they turned towards the door.

  ‘God,’ said Fairleigh, striding across to the windows, ‘it’s like a morgue in here.’ He froze, briefly. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Not the best choice of word, in the circumstances.’ He fumbled at the side of the curtains and they rolled smoothly back. The movement attracted the attention of a passerby, who turned his head and glanced curiously at Hugo. Beyond him a lorry was backing slowly towards the house, cars and vans edging around it. Fairleigh clicked his tongue impatiently and narrowed the gap between the curtains. Then he adjusted those at the other window, too.

  ‘That’s better. Grace, this is Inspector Thanet and Sergeant – Lineham, was it? Yes. Inspector, this is my wife.’

  Grace Fairleigh was sitting beside another woman – her friend Caroline, presumably – on the sofa. Caroline had an arm around her shoulders. Thanet had seen the MP’s wife before of course, at public functions with her husband, and had glimpsed her here and there earlier on. She was tall and slender, with a cloud of black hair and regular, well-formed features. Her eyes were especially beautiful, large, dark and lustrous. This afternoon she looked very tense, her lips compressed, hands clasped tightly in her lap. She acknowledged her husband’s introduction with a tight nod at Thanet.

  ‘And this is Miss Plowright, a friend of my wife’s.’

  Not ‘of ours’, Thanet noted. He had seen Caroline Plowright before, too, around and about in Sturrenden. He noticed that Fairleigh made no move to approach his wife and comfort her, seeming quite content to leave her to Caroline’s ministrations.

  ‘My aunt, Miss Ransome, you have of course already met. And now, Inspector, if that’s all you want of me at the moment, there are a hundred and one things I ought to be attending to outside.’

  ‘By all means go and see to them.’

  ‘If you want me you know where to find me.’

  And Fairleigh hurried out with almost indecent haste. Was he being unfair to the man? Thanet wondered. It was true that there must, indeed, be a great deal to see to outside, but nothing, surely, that was so urgent as to prevent a husband staying to give moral support to a distressed wife in circumstances such as these?

  Caroline Plowright was watching him with a slightly sardonic expression, as if she knew what he was thinking. She was the complete antithesis of her friend – short, solidly built, with meaty arms and shoulders and legs almost as thick at the ankles as at the calf. Her face was broad, with an almost Slavonic tilt to eyes and cheekbones, her short fair hair cut in a square, uncompromising bob. In contrast to Grace, who was wearing an elegant suit of lemon-coloured linen, Caroline’s dress was a straight up and down white shift patterned with huge scarlet poppies. She was not wearing a wedding ring. An interesting woman, Thanet thought, not afraid to be noticed despite her physical disadvantages, and with a mind of her own. Observant, too, and therefore potentially useful.

  The question now was, how to proceed? Once again he was faced with the perennial dilemma: how to treat a possible suspect who could well be innocent?

  ‘Mrs Fairleigh, I know you must be very upset by all this and I’m sorry to trouble you but I’m afraid that in the circumstances I have to ask you a few questions.’

  It was Caroline Plowright who responded. She was watching Grace Fairleigh’s reaction anxiously and spared Thanet only a brief glance. ‘Is it absolutely necessary to do this now, Inspector? Can’t it wait?’

  ‘It’s best to deal with it while today’s events are fresh in people’s minds, Miss Plowright.’

  Grace Fairleigh gave Caroline’s arm a dismissive pat. ‘It’s all right, Caroline, really. The inspector is only doing his job. I don’t see how I can help, but …’ She gestured. ‘Please, go ahead. And do sit down.’

  Automatically, Thanet and Lineham chose seats where they could see the faces of everyone present.

  ‘If you and Miss Ransome could just fill me in on some background information?’

  He gave Letty Ransome a questioning glance and she sat up straighter and nodded. He was pleased to see that she was looking much more composed.

  ‘Of course. Anything we can do, to get this dreadful business cleared up as quickly as possible. Though, like Grace, I don’t really see how we can help.’

  ‘I’m just trying to get a general picture of the household, what has happened here today. And of course, I especially want you to try to remember if you saw anything, anything at all, however trivial, out of the ordinary.’

  They consulted each other with a glance and shook their heads.

  ‘Well, something might come back to you as we talk.’

  Neither of them had yet begun to relax, he thought, as he took them through the events of the morning, Grace Fairleigh sitting bolt upright with hands still clasped in her lap and Letty Ransome tugging nervously at one corner of the handkerchief which her nephew had lent her. They both confirmed what Fairleigh had said. After the phone call from the day nurse and an unsuccessful attempt to get another nurse from the agency, Grace had spent some time ringing around to try and find someone to sit with her mother-in-law during the morning. Eventually Mrs Brent had agreed to come in at 9.30. Grace had then gone across to the other wing to tell Letty what had happened and together she and Letty had attended to the old lady and given her breakfast. As Grace was the only person in the household without a specific task at the fête, she had volunteered to check on her mother-in-law every half an hour or so during the afternoon. Letty had given her sister lunch at 12.30, before going down to join the others for sandwiches at one, in the main house.

  Now that they were approaching the time of the murder Thanet’s interest quickened.

  ‘So what happened after lunch? Mrs Fairleigh?’

  Grace shrugged. ‘I went up to change. Then I went along to check that my mother-in-law was all right.’

  ‘What time would that have been?’

  ‘About a quarter to two. I made her comfortable, then left, saying I’d be back in half an hour or so to see if she wanted anything.’

  ‘She understood you?’

  ‘Oh yes, certainly. Not for the first few days after her stroke, perhaps, but then she gradually began to respond to simple questions. S
he had movement on one side, you see.’

  ‘We’d hold her fingers,’ said Letty eagerly. ‘And she’d give one squeeze for yes, two for no. And over the last day or two the movement was beginning to come back in her paralysed hand. We all thought she was on the mend.’ Tears began to flow again and she wiped them away with the crumpled ball that was now Hugo’s handkerchief. She shook her head. ‘Oh, I know the doctor said she could have another stroke at any time but this … Oh, it’s dreadful, really dreadful.’

  Was he imagining it, or had she peeped at him over the corner of the handkerchief to see what effect her tears were having on him? If so, was it coincidence, he wondered, that Letty Ransome had broken down just as they were approaching that crucial mid-afternoon period?

  Grace rose and went to perch on the arm of Letty’s chair, putting her arm around the older woman’s shoulders and patting her arm. ‘Try not to upset yourself too much, Letty. It won’t help us find out who did this, will it? We must try to stay calm.’

  Caroline had that sardonic look in her eyes again. Why? Thanet wondered. Was it because she didn’t believe Letty Ransome’s display of grief to be genuine? Yes, he must arrange to have a private word with Miss Caroline Plowright as soon as possible. If anyone could help him to understand this family, she could.

  Letty was blowing her nose and sniffing. ‘Yes, yes, you’re right, of course you are. I’m sorry,’ she said to the room at large. ‘Making an exhibition of myself …’

  ‘Understandable, in the circumstances,’ said Thanet, somehow managing to sound both sympathetic and brisk. ‘But I’m sure we all want to clear this up as soon as possible. So if we could go back to what you were saying, Mrs Fairleigh?’

  With a final glance to check that Letty was now sufficiently composed Grace returned to her seat beside Caroline.

  There was a knock at the door. Reinforcements had arrived, including the SOCOs. Lineham went off to deal with them.

  ‘So,’ said Thanet, trying to pick up the threads yet again, ‘on that occasion you must have left your mother-in-law at about ten or five to two?’

  ‘At five to. I kept an eye on the time because I wanted to be there for the opening at two. I just made it.’

  ‘So when did you go up next?’

  ‘At 2.30.’

  ‘And Mrs Fairleigh senior was all right then?’

  ‘Yes. Fine – well, just the same as usual. I gave her a drink, plumped up her pillows and so on.’

  ‘So you stayed, what, five minutes or so?’

  ‘Yes. Then I went up again at about ten past three. And yes, she was still all right. I was going to go up again at a quarter to four – in fact I was actually on my way when I ran into my husband, with Doctor Mallard. He told me he’d looked in on her a few minutes before, and found her … found her dead. It could only just have happened, he said, she was still warm, so he’d fetched a doctor, just in case anything could be done. I … I couldn’t believe it, I’d only left her half an hour earlier. So I went up with them. And when I saw her she … she looked so peaceful, we had no idea there was any question of … anything wrong.’ She took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. ‘However prepared you are, death always comes as a shock, doesn’t it? And when it’s … when there’s …’ She shook her head. ‘It’s difficult to take it in.’

  Caroline was watching her friend with a curiously assessing look.

  What was she trying to assess? Thanet wondered. The truth of Grace Fairleigh’s story, or the sincerity of her reaction to the old lady’s death? Isobel Fairleigh couldn’t have been the easiest of mothers-in-law, he thought, remembering that proud, arrogant profile, the determined lines etched into the dead face. And although the two households had, according to Fairleigh, existed independently, their proximity must have caused problems at times, made the relationship between husband and wife more difficult. Who knew what humiliations Grace may have suffered in the past, the degree of suppressed resentment she may have bottled up for years? Perhaps the temptation of having the old woman at her mercy had proved too much for her? On the other hand, even if old Mrs Fairleigh had been difficult when active, her stroke would surely have eased the situation. A helpless invalid, though an inconvenience, would have been far easier to deal with than an interfering battle-axe, especially when the day-to-day drudgery of looking after her was dealt with by trained nurses. Watching Grace Fairleigh, he wondered if she was in any case capable of the degree of cold-blooded vindictiveness necessary deliberately to finish off someone unable to defend herself. The same applied, of course, to Letty Ransome.

  ‘And what about you, Miss Ransome?’ he said, switching his attention. ‘What did you do after lunch?’

  She was composed again, had listened intently to Grace’s account of the afternoon. She looked startled when Thanet addressed her.

  ‘Me? Oh, I, well, I went straight out into the garden to see if any more stuff had come in for my stall and needed pricing. I was on the white elephant stall, you see, people kept on bringing things in all morning, and it’s so difficult to decide how much to charge. Some of it was quite good stuff, but you know what it’s like on these occasions, people expect to be able to pick things up for next to nothing, and judging exactly the right amount to ask, well, it takes time.’ She flushed, ugly red blotches appearing on the sallow skin of face and neck. ‘I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear all this … Anyway, I went outside and stayed there.’

  ‘All afternoon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Thanet noticed Grace’s eyes widen slightly at this unequivocal affirmative. Was Letty Ransome deliberately lying, or had she forgotten some errand which had briefly taken her away from her stall?

  ‘We were very busy,’ Letty was saying. ‘I don’t know how much we made yet, of course, but … Oh dear, it all seems so trivial, now, in comparison with what’s happened.’

  ‘You said “we”. Someone was helping you?’

  ‘Yes. Mrs Bennet. We usually do the white elephant stall together.’

  ‘And neither of you took a break? For a cup of tea, perhaps?’

  ‘No, someone usually brings us a cup, halfway through the afternoon. Oh, just a moment, I forgot. Yes, I did come into the house briefly, to –’

  The door opened and Lineham came in.

  They had worked together too long for it to be necessary to speak. Everything organised? asked Thanet’s slight lift of the eyebrows. All under control said Lineham’s brief nod.

  ‘Miss Ransome was just telling us that she came into the house briefly this afternoon, Sergeant,’ said Thanet. ‘What time would that have been, Miss Ransome?’

  The red splotches on the scrawny neck were appearing again. ‘About … um … a quarter past three, I should think.’

  A quarter past three. Thanet’s scalp tingled. If Grace Fairleigh were telling the truth and her mother-in-law had still been alive when she left her at around 3.15, and Fairleigh had found her dead at 3.40 … Letty Ransome wouldn’t be able to risk lying about the time, of course, not in the circumstances, with hundreds of potential witnesses about. He kept his face impassive, however, as he said, ‘Now I want you to think very carefully. This could be important. What, exactly, did you do and see?’

  This time the tide of colour which began at the neckline of her dress and spread up into her face was so pronounced as to engulf the red patches completely. Thanet watched with interest. What was coming?

  Her reply, however, was a distinct anticlimax.

  ‘I simply went to the cloakroom, just inside the back door, then came out again.’

  Could maidenly modesty have been responsible for that blush? wondered Thanet. Was that possible, in this day and age? Just, he conceded. On the other hand, if Letty Ransome had something to hide perhaps that betraying flush was something more than embarrassment. Guilt, perhaps, if she had lied. She didn’t strike him as the sort of person who was an habitual liar.

  ‘You didn’t go upstairs at all?’ he persisted.

  She shook h
er head, one of the escaping wisps of hair floating across her mouth with the passage of air. She brushed it away impatiently. ‘No.’

  And she was lying, Thanet was certain of it now. He could tell by the even more pronounced flash of surprise which crossed Grace Fairleigh’s face. She had seen her husband’s aunt not only inside but upstairs, Thanet was certain of it. She noticed Thanet watching her and looked away.

  ‘There was something you wanted to say, Mrs Fairleigh?’

  She met his eyes squarely. ‘No.’

  So family solidarity was the order of the day. It looked as though there wouldn’t be much point in persisting but he decided to try again. ‘You must have been coming away from your mother-in-law’s room at around the time your aunt came into the house.’

  ‘I expect she was in the cloakroom as I went by.’

  Thanet did not miss Letty Ransome’s relief.

  ‘Now I must ask you both to think very carefully. Did either of you see anything or anyone in the least suspicious while you were indoors?’

  They shook their heads. But he caught the brief flicker of a memory recalled in Letty Ransome’s eyes before she lowered her head and again plucked at the handkerchief.

  ‘Miss Ransome?’

  She shook her head again, compressed her lips. ‘No.’

  So she wasn’t going to tell him, not at the moment, anyway. Perhaps she wanted to think about it, first, decide in her own time.

  He caught Lineham’s eye. No, he hadn’t imagined all this. Lineham had seen it too, he could tell. The sergeant’s slight shrug confirmed his own opinion. There was no point in pursuing the matter at the moment. Neither woman was going to change her story at this point. Wait, then, for further leverage.