‘I could not possibly say.’
‘You have no need of saying. Dr Phillips made certain suggestions about his friend Clive Mason. Now I do not know if they are true, neither do I want to. If Dr Mason is a sodomite, then that is his affair. Though I do have to say that if it is true, perhaps he was unwise and unfair to marry a woman like Martha. You know she wanted children?’
‘I didn’t know her, so how could I know that?’
‘Too true. She made do with Nora’s, but I know it made her sad.’
‘What did you know about her life before she came here?’ Henry asked. ‘About where she worked?’
Georgia Styles half closed her eyes and appeared to be thinking about this but then nodded. ‘Probably a good deal more than anyone else around here. That nonsense about her being an office typist. Just so much humbug. She worked for a solicitor’s company which also comprised a firm of private enquiry agents, under a different name but actually part of the same company. Some of these were based in Brighton, I believe, and also with offices in London, and they were employed in either obtaining evidence suitable for the divorce courts or in, how shall I put it, ensuring that appropriate evidence was … created. I don’t need to tell you what sacrifices must be made at times in order for guilt to be proved in these cases. It seems a shame to me that reputations must be ruined in order for two people who made the mistake of becoming married to be freed from that state. How many unhappy marriages are there, Inspector? How many that should be walked away from, with no recriminations and no regrets.’
‘A great many, I would think. You know as well as I do that the only grounds for divorce is adultery.’
‘Not cruelty, not falling out of love, not a simple need to be free. It seems so unfair, Inspector, that nothing else counts and so adultery must be proved.’
‘And Martha Mason, she worked for these solicitors, these enquiry agents. But you think not in the office.’
‘I believe she began there, typing and filing and greeting clients and all the usual stuff that young women get up to in such companies, but Martha Mason was a very beautiful woman and also a very resourceful one and although she never told me directly I believe that from time to time she took the part of the other woman, the one who would sign the register with the man who sought to be divorced, or even at the request of the wife who knew that adultery must be proved but did not wish for the husband to actually be put through the difficulty of finding someone to commit the act with.
‘I know that many marriages end acrimoniously, but there are many that just wish for release and I believe that these are the ones that Martha assisted with.’
For the first time in the conversation, she looked away from Henry and he knew that she was not really convincing herself, never mind him. But that she wished her friend to have been more innocent and principled than she probably was.
‘Martha would sign the register, then go to the hotel room with the man in question, the private enquiry agent would come in and would photograph them and photograph the register. This evidence would then be given to the courts and adultery would be proved and the divorce could be finalised. I’m told it is a commonplace, so no doubt you have met this little scheme.’
Henry agreed that he was familiar with it.
‘She told me all this in confidence, of course. And I would never have broken that confidence. But the fact is I have lost yet another friend, one that was kind and very dear to me and at my age, Inspector, you cannot afford to lose too many friends. Most are already gone ahead and my only hope is that when I finally cross the river they will be waiting there for me. But let me tell you, Inspector, I will be going in my own time and my own way and not because someone like Dr Ephraim Phillips decides that my death is appropriate and needful.’
‘I take it he will not be remembered in your will,’ Henry added with a smile.
Miss Georgia Styles laughed heartily. ‘You can be very sure of that,’ she said. ‘My will is lodged with my solicitor, and my wishes are made very, very clear. I have little in terms of family, and they will be getting a small bequest, but I believe in rewarding loyalty and my housekeeper has been loyal to me these many, many years. Ellie has been more than my housekeeper – she has been my friend and support and it only seems right that the majority of my estate goes to her. I hope she still has some life left after I am gone, and I would not see her destitute. And I have it in my will, that should those few members of my family object, then they will lose the bequest that comes to them. They know this and my solicitor assures me that there can be no valid objection.’
Henry nodded. ‘That seems somehow very appropriate,’ he said. ‘And is there anything else that you wish to tell me, while I’m here.’
She laughed again. ‘You are very direct. I like that. I’m getting tired, Inspector, so I will be brief, but I think there is one more thing. Mr Henry Benson, for all his flash and outward display, is not as well set up as he would have the world think. I know for a fact that he has slowly been selling off the contents of that house for two or three years now. A painting here, a piece of silver there, the contents of his father’s library. His father was a great student of the arts and the sciences. He and I were friends even after his marriage. His wife was a lovely woman so how between them they produced such a virulent progeny is beyond me. The man is an idiot and yet he had two intelligent parents. He’s an ignorant oaf and yet his parents were both refined and generous by nature. But it occurs to me that a man in need of money, one who is used to having everything and faces the real possibility of destitution – at least in his terms – is a somewhat dangerous man. A wild beast is at its most vicious when backed into a corner.’
‘And did someone back him into a corner?’
‘I believe perhaps that Martha did. As I mentioned there were rumours about young women who had fallen foul of his attentions and there was one that there are worse rumours about. I know you heard this from Nellie Richardson because she came to see me this morning, very early, and told me what she and her daughter had informed you. She wanted me to know that she had urged you to speak to me again.’
‘She believes this young woman to be murdered?’
‘She believes that young woman to be dead. Now murder is perhaps too strong. The rumours say that she went to procure a termination of her condition and I’m sure I don’t need to speak to you of how brutal such operations are even when they go well.’
Henry reflected that he was indeed familiar with the details, but he was quite surprised that an elderly maiden lady should know so much.
‘It is possible that this killed her. It is also possible that she took her own life. But Martha counted Benson as being responsible either way and I believe she told him so.’
‘Martha Mason was pregnant. Did she confide that to you?’
‘No, but I had guessed as much. But don’t look to Benson for that. I am certain, after talking to Mrs Richardson, that she broke things off with him last year, whatever he might be inclined to tell you. Her sister-in-law would have been aware had this affair continued. If she was carrying a child then the father was someone else.’
‘Dr Phillips?’
‘It’s a possibility. I told you, she wished for children. I suspect that Clive would have come around to the idea eventually. After all, he would hardly want his state to be revealed, would he?’
‘But would that not have made their marriage very unhappy?’
‘People adapt when they love one another, Inspector. Martha had adapted to his requirements, and he knew this. It was deeply unfair, in my opinion, for him to expect she just settle back and ignore her own requirements, her own needs. I think perhaps she thought that he would come around.’
‘I’m not sure that is likely.’
‘Perhaps not, but desperate people can convince themselves of anything.’
‘And was she desperate? Was this need for a baby so overwhelming?’
‘No, it’s not something I could understand eithe
r, Inspector. I think in that we’re cut from the same cloth. I like children, I enjoy their company and I especially enjoy the fact that I can hand them back, but some women are meant to be mothers, and yes, I believe that need can become overwhelming. I don’t imagine she planned any of this, but I do wonder if, had Clive rejected her, she would not simply have left him and found a way to raise her child elsewhere. I hope if that had happened, she would have come to me for help. She would have been given assistance, I can assure you of that.’
Henry nodded. Miss Georgia Styles had given him a lot to think about but he could see that she was desperately weary now and so he took his leave. ‘I will come and see you again,’ he said.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said. ‘I am, after all, the ageing spider that sits at the heart of the web.’
Otis arrived at the pharmacy just after Mickey left. Ordinarily he would have brought with him a Kodak self-development tank in which he could have processed his film and created his negatives even without the aid of a darkroom, but this trip had been a speedily organized and unexpected one. News of Martha Mason’s death had caused a flurry of anxiety and hastily made arrangements that had Otis speeding north without time for proper preparation. Fortunately the pharmacist had a reasonable supply of materials to purchase and a tiny cubicle at the back of the shop that was often used by local amateur photographers.
Otis had waited until Mickey was a good distance from the chemist shop and had then gone in to stake his claim at his appointed time.
The pharmacist was absent. His daughter had charge of the shop that morning. ‘Oh, Mr Freeland, a little complication, I’m afraid. The police sergeant who just left, his film has been processed but the prints are not yet fully dry. I wonder, would you mind returning in an hour or so?’
‘If I do that then my own prints will not have time to dry before I must send them down to London by the evening train. I need only to produce my contact sheets––’
‘Oh dear. Oh, goodness. I don’t want anyone put out, you understand, only this is such an awkward business.’
‘And I promise I will not disturb the policeman’s prints,’ he told her.
He was sure she was on the verge of giving in, but unfortunately for Otis the pharmacist returned from his errand and was reluctant in the extreme to allow Otis to use the back room while the policeman’s prints were still there. He was also reluctant in the extreme to lose the considerable sum Otis was prepared to pay, just to get his darkroom time.
Otis would have paid a good deal more to have access to Mickey’s photographs but in the end a compromise was reached. A fresh sheet was laid out on a table in the pharmacy itself, not accessible from the shop. The photographs would be placed there and Otis could have access to the little room.
It would have to be enough, Otis thought.
A half hour later he was ensconced and a little after that he was examining the wounds to Martha Mason’s skull with a hand lens.
One single wound, Otis said to himself. One wound and the woman was dead.
So who had killed her? With a slight shiver, Otis realized that recent experience suggested the names of at least two possible suspects – neither of which Otis would like to be in the same room with.
He wondered if Sergeant Hitchens or his chief inspector were currently aware of either.
TEN
In the early afternoon, Henry, Mickey and Sergeant Emory convened at the police station to discuss what they had so far. The evidence, such as it was, was laid out on the table in front of them.
‘I have sent what fingerprints I managed to recover and photographs down to London,’ Mickey told them. ‘It will be late tomorrow probably before we get any kind of message come back. They will receive them today, but a fingerprint bureau works on comparisons in the morning and sends out its reports in the afternoon. They have their routine and we must wait on it.’
Henry nodded. He recounted what Miss Styles had told him that morning.
‘So according to her,’ Emory said slowly, ‘either Mr Phillips is responsible for the child, or we should be looking for yet another man.’ He shook his head ‘I wouldn’t reckon Mrs Mason for being a promiscuous type. Something about this does not ring true.’
‘You would not have credited the doctor’s wife with owning a gun,’ Henry said, pointing to the weapon. ‘And probably not with concealing money that her husband did not know about. Both of them took pains to cover up her past, not because she did anything illegal but because they considered it dubious. That to me speaks of someone who is deliberately trying to change their life, so if she had affairs, we must ask ourselves why. She’s been married eight years, apparently happy. Did she leave her life behind, utterly and completely eight or so years ago, or has she always continued with a kind of secondary existence that her husband did not know about?’
‘Well, all that is possible,’ Mickey said. ‘But it’s hard to know when she’d find the time. She works beside her husband, she is on this committee, and organizing that fundraising event. I suppose you could argue that this brings her into contact with a great many people, and affords her opportunity at the very least. Perhaps that flirtation on one or two occasions has grown into something else. And then there is Dr Phillips; always on hand, always pushing. And perhaps her refusal actually added to her attractions.’
‘But did he father her child?’ Emory wanted to know. ‘Or are we looking for a third person? And that’s if we believe that her relationship with Mr Benson ended when Miss Styles thinks it did. Benson led you to believe something else.’
‘He did,’ Henry agreed. ‘But do we believe him or does this simply play to the narrative of his, that women cannot resist his advances. Do we believe any of the people involved in this? So far honesty has not been in great supply. Though I’m inclined to accept what the housemaid Grace Richardson told us, and I’m also inclined to believe that Miss Styles at least believes she’s telling the truth. But she can only tell us what she observed and what inference she drew from those observations and we all know people can be mistaken.’
‘And so would you like me to go and fetch Dr Phillips here?’ Emory asked. ‘It seems to me that unless he is brought here, formally and forcefully, that he will be reluctant to say anything. We should challenge him on his relationship with Mrs Mason but we should also tax him on the accusations Miss Styles has made, regarding the misuse of morphine.’
‘You may be right, but at the moment I prefer to tread more softly. We will question Dr Phillips, and we will tax him with what we know, but if all he was guilty of was overbearing flirtation, however reprehensible that might be, I do not want to risk reputations that could yet be salvaged. There are families here who would be impacted upon and a community that needs to trust those who serve them. If Dr Phillips proves uncooperative, however, then you may bring him through the town in handcuffs for all to see. And as to the morphine, that would be such an impossible thing to prove without a great deal more evidence. Evidence we don’t have the resources to gather. My father was a general practitioner,’ he added reluctantly. He hated speaking about his father, even obliquely. ‘It is well known that doctors will sometimes oversubscribe, when the end is anticipated, to ensure that end is peaceful. It then becomes a moot point as to which finally takes the patient: the illness or the morphine. Where palliative care begins and ends is difficult to ascertain.’
‘And Martha Mason was a doctor’s wife,’ Emory reminded him. ‘It’s likely she would have been aware of that. If her suspicions matched those of Miss Styles, then I’d be inclined to take notice.’
‘Your point is taken,’ Henry told him.
Mickey picked up the little key and examined it closely. ‘There’s nothing at the house or in the surgery that this fits and if you look at it, it’s such a flimsy, ornamental bit of a thing. I could imagine it fitting a ladies’ jewellery box, or even one of those strange little diaries you get with the lock on it. Like the one you bought for Melissa.’
H
enry nodded. ‘Melissa is my niece,’ he explained to Emory. ‘She is of an age where such things appeal to her. No, but you are right, it’s not the key to a strong box, it is not the key even to a particularly large jewellery box. My mother had something like it that locked a tea caddy, but I could also imagine this hanging from a chain around someone’s neck or on a fob. It looks more fanciful than useful.’
He took it from Mickey’s hand and laid it on his own palm. The key was solid silver, which alone suggested decoration rather than use. It was small and ornate, with a little loop of flowers forming the head. He would have taken it for something falling from a charm bracelet had it not been just slightly too large for that and had it also not been so obviously cut as though to fit a very specific lock. But Mickey was right, it did look like something that would open a diary or a tiny box or even a large locket.
‘Anything that fitted,’ Emory said stoutly. ‘I would think you could open by levering it with a table knife. It is a flimsy little thing. Isn’t it likely it simply slid under the reinforcement in the lining by accident and we are reading far too much into this? That perhaps it fell off a bracelet or necklace and she put it in her bag for safekeeping and from there it simply wedged itself beneath the lining.’
‘Entirely possible,’ Henry agreed. ‘But I remember the way it was found, folded in with the notes and that makes me doubt that explanation, and the husband did not recognize it as being from jewellery his wife owned. Mickey, Emory would you consider that this key is more symbolic than useful? An emblem of something, a token.’
Mickey patted his chest theatrically. ‘I give you the key to my heart,’ he pronounced solemnly.
Emory laughed. ‘It is the kind of trifle a lover might give to his beloved, and if that was the case, he might want it back. But the gun interests me more. To conceal a gun with five rounds of ammunition, what does this tell us. Was she afraid? If so, why not take the weapon with her when she went out?’
The Good Wife Page 12
