The Good Wife

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘If you could compile a list of names,’ Mickey said, ‘that would be useful to us. The more eyes on this, the better.’

  ‘And Martha seemed content, happy?’ prompted Henry gently.

  ‘She seemed very happy. The children love her. Loved her. We were all laughing and talking, and she even took a glass of wine, which is unusual for Martha. We had packed lemonade for the children, and usually Martha would have drunk the lemonade as well. But that day she did have a glass of wine.’

  Her husband looked slightly surprised, but then nodded. ‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ he said. ‘But I think you are correct. You may not know, but Newark-on-Trent is quite a centre for the temperance movement and although none of us has signed the pledge, we are in favour of temperance, particularly among the working men. Clive and I have both seen first-hand the damage that can be done to communities and to marriages due to inebriation. Martha in fact rarely indulged.’

  Unlike yourself and Clive Mason, Henry thought. The pair of you having spent the afternoon in the bar. But he did not say this out loud and congratulated himself on his tact. Mickey would be proud, he thought wryly.

  ‘And then after lunch?’

  ‘Well, our husbands went away to speak to friends they had spotted earlier, and arranged to meet with after lunch, so Martha and I packed away and then we sat for a time watching the children play. Then we took the picnic basket to the left luggage office – they have a service on race days where it is possible to leave baggage as so many people come up by train. And then we walked for a time, looking at the crowds and the horses and watching the tic-tac men. Martha knew quite a lot about them,’ she said with a smile. ‘She had great fun interpreting their signals for me.’

  ‘Really?’ her husband enquired. ‘And how did she know that? Are you sure she wasn’t pretending?’

  ‘And why would she do that?’

  Interesting, Henry thought.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘The children wanted to go on the fairground. We had made them wait for a time after they had lunch so they weren’t sick, but at around two o’clock we began to wend our way back. It’s not a quick process with three children in tow, as you can imagine. I was so grateful for Martha being there. And then she saw someone in the crowd.’

  ‘She did not say who?’

  ‘No, I’ve thought about this so much. Worrying in case I’d missed something. But I’m sure I haven’t. Martha said, as close as I can remember it: “Oh, I had no idea they would be here. It’s been such a long time. Won’t be a tick.” And then off she went and disappeared into the crowd.’ She looked mournfully at Henry and he could see that her grief was genuine. ‘And that was the last time I saw her.’

  A maid in a starched white apron had opened the door to them at the Phillips’ house, one of two dailies who came in to help, Dr Phillips had told them. The Phillips’ house was a three-storey, semi-detached affair, with a small front garden and – a glimpse out of the back window told Henry – quite a substantial rear one. Initially it reminded him of the house where he had grown up, Henry’s father having also been a doctor. Although, the moment he had stepped through the front door, he had realized that this was different. His father’s house had been a cold and austere place where children were meant to be invisible, whereas here Henry and Mickey had been greeted at once by three little ones running into the hall to see who the visitors were. They had been shooed away by the maid who had smiled at Henry and told him that she would bring tea and would the gentlemen like to wait in the parlour. It was clearly an informal household.

  However, at this second house it was Dr Clive Mason who opened his own front door to them and the contrast between the noise and bustle of the Phillips’ household and the intense quiet in this one could not have been greater. This was also a semi-detached house but here the front room had been given over to the doctor’s surgery and chairs were lined up in what was quite a broad, tiled hall from which stairs rose steeply. A second room, behind the surgery, seemed to have been designated for paperwork and dispensing and Henry glimpsed a kitchen at the end of the hall.

  ‘We live upstairs,’ Dr Mason told them, and led the way up the steep flight.

  The layout of the upstairs was very similar, what was the surgery below was a living room on the first floor, with a small dining room next to it and above the kitchen, a bathroom. A second flight of stairs rose to what were presumably bedrooms. It was not a grand house but it was warm and friendly, the walls hung with pictures and inexpensive but pretty ornaments sat beside a marble clock on the mantelpiece. Books occupied most of the shelf space with photographs and other ornaments set in front of them. The furniture was not new, but it was comfortable and bright with throws and cushions. The curtains that hung in the bay window looked surprisingly expensive compared to the rest of the furnishings; old but heavy velvet. Clive Mason noticed him looking. ‘They were here when we moved in,’ he said. ‘Martha took them down, brushed and mended them, and they certainly do keep out the drafts in the winter.’

  It seemed, Henry thought, that Dr Phillips was in a generally better financial position that his friend. Was that down to his marriage, Henry wondered, or to the quality of patients the doctors had on their lists?

  Clive Mason sat down, and then stood up again, his hand to his head. ‘Forgive me, can I offer you—’

  ‘We need nothing, thank you,’ Mickey told him. ‘Please sit down, Dr Mason. We will try not to keep you for too long.’

  Clive Mason took a seat. He looked lost, Mickey thought. Absolutely knocked sideways by events. ‘We have just been to see your friend and colleague Dr Phillips and spoken to him and to his wife. They told us that Mrs Mason seemed in good spirits. That she saw a friend in the crowd and went after them, after which they know nothing.’

  Clive Mason blinked. ‘I was with Ephraim in the bar. We had all picnicked together and then he and I had gone to meet friends. It had been such a happy day. Martha loved being around the children. We have not been blessed and that had been something to regret, but I’m glad of it now.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The constable came for me at just after four o’clock. We walked across to where they had found … on the way he told me they had found a body. He speculated that it was a woman who had been entertaining a man. Of course, he did not know who it really was, and it was a reasonable speculation, given the location. When I got there, I found other constables and the owner of the horsebox and I think one of his assistants standing around. The door was open, I looked inside. At first, I thought I recognized the shoes. One shoe had come off and was lying on the straw and I thought it looked like Martha’s. But I never … never imagined. And then I got closer. She was lying with her face down in the straw but I knew immediately it was her. There was a most terrible wound to the back of her head. I knew at once that she was dead.’

  ‘It must have been a terrible, terrible shock,’ Mickey sympathized. ‘Dr Mason, everyone has spoken very warmly of your wife, but did she have any enemies, anyone she had upset? Anyone who might have wished her harm?’

  Dr Mason looked puzzled and confused. ‘I thought it was a robbery,’ he said. ‘Her bag was missing, someone had stolen her bag and hit her over the head.’

  Of course, Mickey thought, he didn’t know that the bag had been found. How could he? He watched the doctor carefully as he said, ‘It seems the bag had been handed in, it turned up at the police station amongst a batch of other lost property today. We’ve seen it; there does not appear to be anything missing. A purse, her money and her other possessions seem still to have been inside.’

  He watched as the confusion deepened on Dr Mason’s face. As the realization came that this was not some random violent robbery. ‘You are telling me that somebody killed my wife deliberately. That it was not a robbery that met with misadventure. You are telling me that she was deliberately murdered.’

  ‘As of now, we are keeping an open mind. It could still be that someone attacked her for her bag, kicked the
bag into the bushes where it was found, intending to return for it later but realizing that they had hit this lady far too hard, sought then to hide the body.’ Even as Mickey said it, he realized how convoluted it sounded, nevertheless that was still a possibility.

  Dr Mason was staring at him, his disbelief evident. ‘They would have taken the bag and run, emptied it, cast it aside, not given any care to hiding a body. Where was the bag found?’

  Mickey once more took out the map and showed him, glad now that he had produced it.

  ‘No, no, you have it all wrong. On race day that area would be packed solid with people. You have never been here on race day, you have no idea how the crowd ebbs and flows, but in that area and at the time they suspect she was killed, this would be full of people waiting to place bets. There is no way an assailant would have killed her there, not without being seen. No one could have delivered a blow like that in such a crowded and busy place.’

  Mickey nodded, interested. This accorded with what they had already been told and what they had already seen. ‘Which leads us to a question, Dr Mason. The place where your wife was found is away from crowds, a quiet and less-travelled area. We suspect that this is where your wife was in fact killed, probably not in the horsebox itself but nearby. Traces of blood have been found. To go to such a place, your wife must have trusted the person she was with. Or it is possible she was taken under duress, which begs the question why did she not cry out for help given that she must have passed through many crowded spots in order to get to that particular place.’

  ‘The motive may still have been robbery,’ Mason argued. ‘She may have gone there with someone she considered to be a friend or acquaintance. Nora said she spotted someone in the crowd and went chasing after them. Though I have to say it’s not like Martha to be so impulsive. But perhaps they then turned on her, hit her, took her bag.’

  Mickey was shaking his head. ‘According to the young couple who found the bag, they spotted it at around three in the afternoon. At first they thought it might simply have been dropped, because when the wife checked inside she could see that the contents were still there. She took it to a steward who then took it to the lost property office and eventually it came to the police station. Your wife left her friend at around two fifteen. By three o’clock the bag is missing and has just been found. By four o’clock the constable has come to fetch you. So we know that your wife lost her bag, was taken or went under duress, or even willingly, to the place where she was found and there she was killed. This is a problematic timeline, Dr Mason.’

  Clive Mason was staring at him as though unable to really comprehend what he was saying. ‘You are telling me that Martha saw someone she knew, she met with them and they took her away and killed her. And she made no protest going with them? I don’t see how that is possible.’

  Neither did Mickey but that was what the facts supported just now. ‘On the face of it, no, it seems unlikely. There are gaps in our timeline and in our understanding of what was going on in your wife’s mind. Mrs Phillips seems to think she was merely excited at the prospect of seeing an old friend, or possibly friends. She gave no explanation when she left Mrs Phillips, but does not seem to have been distressed or anxious. Surely had she been anxious to avoid these people she would simply have turned the other way. And we have large gaps in our timeline which must be filled.’

  Dr Mason stared at him for a moment, obviously trying to put it all together in his mind. ‘I cannot understand who would want to harm Martha. A random thief who hit someone too hard, that I can comprehend, but you were telling me that she was deliberately murdered and perhaps by somebody who knew her or whom she thought of as a friend. I find that so hard to understand.’

  ‘Your wife was not a local woman,’ Henry said.

  ‘No, no we met on the south coast. I was in Brighton on business. I was not yet fully employed up here, and an old acquaintance required a locum for two weeks. Frankly, I needed the money. It takes time to become established as a general practitioner. Ephraim had settled more quickly – he had managed to buy a practice from a doctor who had been on the verge of retirement. He allowed me to share space there, but of course it was his practice and not mine. I was grateful for the work, of course, and of him accommodating me, and I was slowly building a list of my own. Ephraim had married Nora, you see, and it pleased Nora’s father to have a doctor in the family, so he helped with the finance and he directed many of his own customers that way, in addition to those left from the previous practice – though it has to be said, Dr Fitzgerald had let things run down somewhat in the final years before he retired. He was an old man and not as capable as he had once been.’

  This was an interestingly different account to the one they had received from Dr Phillips, Henry thought. ‘And then you met your wife, while you were down in Brighton.’

  For the first time during the interview, Clive Mason smiled. ‘I met her, and it was as though my life began. Yes, I know how that sounds, but Martha made all the difference both to my personal world and to my medical practice. Suddenly I wasn’t alone. She worked beside me as hard and as long as ever I did and four years ago we managed to afford this place and I started up on my own. I could not have done this without her help.’

  ‘Your wife’s family, are they still down in Brighton?’

  He shook his head. ‘Like me, Martha was without family. Her parents had died in the Spanish flu epidemic and the aunt that had brought her up had passed away the year before we met. Martha was sharing a flat with two other girls and working as a typist. But she was clearly far more intelligent than her job demanded. For some time we simply corresponded and then I asked her if she could come and visit. I thought we needed to know one way or another and Ephraim and Nora were kind enough to give her accommodation. After that, I knew. I needed her, I wanted her to be my wife and I’m happy to say that she agreed. We had a very simple wedding with Nora and Ephraim as witnesses and Nora arranged a wedding breakfast for us. I would love to have given Martha a proper church wedding, but she said it didn’t matter to her and I believed her.’

  He crossed the mantelpiece and picked up a photograph and passed it to Henry. ‘This is our wedding photograph,’ he said.

  In it, Clive Mason looked deliriously happy and his bride seem to be smiling at him in amusement. She was small and slight, with dark hair. She wore a pretty dress and carried flowers, but yes it was a simple affair and Henry doubted the photograph was taken by a professional. It was simply rather a good snap.

  He showed the photograph to Mickey before handing it back to Dr Mason. ‘She looks kind,’ Mickey said.

  ‘Oh, she was. And patient. Which is as well, because I am a very impatient man.’

  He sat staring at the photograph and the look on his face was one of despair.

  ‘We will do all we can to get to the bottom of this,’ Mickey told him.

  Clive Mason turned weary eyes on to Sergeant Hitchens as though he didn’t really believe that anything could be done. He nodded slowly but his look was bleak. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do now,’ he said. ‘I just don’t know how I can carry on.’

  They had asked other questions: was this Martha’s usual handbag? No, it was one used on special occasions.

  Would he notice, did he think, if any of the usual contents of her bag were missing?

  Probably not.

  As a matter of routine they had asked to see Martha’s usual bag, and any other possessions which were exclusively hers. Letters, perhaps a writing desk? Perhaps a box where she kept personal items?

  Clive Mason nodded. ‘I use the second bedroom as my study, and occasionally sleep there if I’m kept out late and don’t want to disturb her on my return. We don’t often have guests. Martha has a bureau in the bedroom.’ He rose as if about to show them where and then sat back down.

  Without asking, Mickey crossed to the sideboard and poured the man a brandy. ‘You stay there – I’m sure we can find whatever we need. We’ll be carefu
l not to make a muddle.’

  Dr Mason took the brandy glass automatically, and then sat staring into it. Henry and Mickey left him to his grief and went up the final flight of stairs and into the master bedroom. Like the living room it overlooked the street, and the bedroom also had quite a large side window that looked down into part of the garden. Unexpectedly sizeable, Henry thought. A hedge divided this garden from the neighbour’s, a mix of privet and other shrubs and Henry thought he could discern the first of the wild roses coming into bloom. They were early this year, he thought, but then the weather had been unusually warm.

  He turned back from the window and surveyed the room. Mickey was still standing by the door, waiting for Henry to finish his observations. The room was neat and clean and simply furnished. The mix of furnishings indicated that they had been bought piecemeal and probably as and when the young couple could afford. Bed, two wardrobes, tallboy and the bureau. A small dressing table had been improvised from an old-fashioned washstand with a mirror set upon it along Martha’s brushes, pots of cream and bottles of rose and lavender water.

  Judging that Henry had finished his ruminations, Mickey crossed to the dressing table and examined the bottles and pots. ‘Cold cream, a glass jar of cotton wool and a near-empty bottle of Shalimar perfume,’ he observed. ‘Doesn’t Cynthia wear that? A little expensive for a doctor’s wife, but the label is worn and she may have had it for some time.’ The hairbrush and the clothes brush were silver-backed, but they too looked old and similar to those which Mickey’s wife owned and which they had picked up in a second-hand shop for very little money. He poked his fingers into a small, moulded, brass bowl that contained hairpins and removed the lid from another which contained two brooches and a couple of rings. ‘Paste and silver, I’m guessing.’ He picked up a brooch that looked like an amethyst and held it up to the light, unsure if it was glass or the real thing. It was in a gold-coloured setting and the stone was about as large as Mickey’s thumbnail. He set it down again thoughtfully.