by Faith Martin
Now that she explained it in so many words, it all seemed so simple. In her grief, Mrs Jarvis might have got her mind all twisted up about things, brooding alone in the cottage that was hers no longer, and all because of the Kelton brothers. Yes, he could see how that could happen. Although surely it would be Stan she would try to kill, and not Sid? Except, of course, Stan was a strong bull of a man and could swat her like a fly, whereas Sid was frail and weaker, and for a woman, made a much more easy target. He found himself shivering at the thought, and reached for a piece of warm toast.
‘And then there’s the second thing against her,’ Jenny said thoughtfully, blowing across the surface of her piping-hot tea and taking a tentative sip.
Moulton knew better than to stick his neck out for a second time. ‘Which is?’ he asked simply and straight to the point.
The cook smiled sadly. ‘If you were going to kill someone, you’d want to blow as much smoke over it as you could. Yes?’
Moulton sighed. ‘Unless you didn’t care if you got caught. But no, that sounds reasonable enough.’
‘Yet, on the morning of the murder, all the Kelton family came back and just stood there, well, milling around and not doing much at all in the smokescreen department. Apart from Stan accusing me, nobody said anything, or did anything that you could say was out of the ordinary.’
Moulton blinked. ‘So?’
‘So,’ Jenny said, beginning to feel unutterably weary. ‘Mrs Jarvis was the only one who went out of her way to make it plain how much she hated Stan. She was always drawing our attention to Stan, and away from Sid. She even went so far as to call Stan the devil. Of Sid, she said practically nothing. Now, assume for a moment she is our killer. What does she do? She comes back to the farm only when she knows that someone must have discovered the killing by now and called in the cops; and she waits until most of the initial rumpus must be over and then comes to the farm and pretends to be in total ignorance. And when we tell her that somebody’s been killed, she immediately thinks — or would have us think that she thinks — that it is Stan who’s dead, thereby distracting us yet again. And when she’s told that it’s not Stan but Sid, she puts on a very good performance of surprise and shock. All very dramatic, and the only one of all the suspects that stands out, just for that reason.’
‘With the result that we immediately think that she didn’t do it, because a killer wouldn’t act so outlandishly?’
Jenny sighed. ‘It all depends, you know, on how clever Mrs Jarvis really is. And how well she can act.’
Moulton grunted, not particularly interested in such details. It would simply be very handy if they could nab Mrs Jarvis for the killing. It would be a crime solved in record time, and the super would be very happy at not having to arrest a member of a wealthy and respected local family. And yet . . .
‘For all that, I still can’t see Mrs Jarvis sticking a knife into a harmless old man,’ he said dismally.
‘No, neither can I,’ Jenny agreed glumly.
* * *
Mrs Jarvis’s cottage was an almost exact replica of the Brays’ cottage opposite. As Jenny and Moulton walked up the cleared front path, the cook saw the curtains twitch in the living room opposite and hid a small smile. No doubt Sissy was keeping an eye on things — by now she must have heard about her friend’s uncle getting himself murdered. Or perhaps it was the ‘invalid’ herself who was intent on satisfying her curiosity? She wouldn’t put much past Cordelia.
Mrs Jarvis looked surprised to see the cook, and her eyes, when they slid to the policeman beside her, widened nervously. But there was nothing in that, they both knew. Nobody liked a visit from the police, especially respectable, working-class cleaning ladies.
‘May we come in, Mrs Jarvis?’ Jenny asked. ‘The inspector here wanted to get to know more about the Kelton family, and I told him nobody would know more than you.’
At this unashamed piece of flannel, Mrs Jarvis brightened visibly. ‘Oh, right you are. Come on in then, come on in, and I’ll put some mince pies out.’
Inside, the cottage was cramped with furniture and various knick-knacks, but it was cheerful enough, and Jenny gratefully took a seat on the settee in front of the fire, allowing her snow-caked boots to melt messily. Moulton chose a hard-backed chair to one side.
Mrs Jarvis quickly came back with tea and mince pies and settled herself into what was obviously her favourite, slightly sagging armchair. With her iron-grey hair escaping her untidy bun, her thick stockings wrinkling at her ankles and her flowered apron splashed with a bit of flour, she looked the least likely murder suspect you could ever hope to meet.
Jenny smiled. ‘We were wondering, Mrs Jarvis, if you had any ideas over who would want to kill Sid,’ she began, and Moulton, who’d just taken a mouthful of tea, promptly choked on it. ‘You see, we just can’t figure it out,’ she added helplessly.
‘Oh, I know, isn’t it terrible?’ Mrs Jarvis’s large, rather watery eyes watered even more.
‘Now if it had been Stan that died . . .’ Jenny murmured, and trailed off.
As predicted, Mrs Jarvis jumped right in. ‘Oh, you don’t have to tell me! I know. Everyone wants that devil dead. But poor old Sid?’ She shook her head. ‘It fair turns my stomach. I’m telling you, I’m not sure if I can come in to work tomorrow. Being in that house . . .’ she shuddered.
‘Of course,’ Jenny said, ‘somebody might think that Sid was the real cause of all the trouble over at the farm,’ she dangled the bait craftily. ‘After all, Stan only got away with what he did because Sid let him. When all’s said and done, Sid was the true owner of the farm.’
Mrs Jarvis’s face flushed angrily. ‘Now, don’t you go talking such nonsense,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve only been there five minutes, young missy. What do you know about it? Eh?’ Her chin jutted out pugnaciously. ‘Poor old Sid never had a chance against that monster, no more than the rest of us did!’ Her eyes blazed and she clanked her cup down angrily onto her saucer. ‘What that poor old man suffered at his brother’s hands . . .’ Mrs Jarvis’s bottom lip began to quiver. ‘I don’t know how anyone could have stood it.’
Jenny glanced across at Moulton. They were both thinking much the same thing. If Mrs Jarvis was acting, she could put Judi Dench or De Niro to shame.
‘That man never drew a happy breath in his life, thanks to that brother of his.’ Mrs Jarvis, having paused for breath, was more than ready to continue the battle in Sid’s defence. ‘My ma said, right from the time they was boys, that Stan was determined to get the farm off his brother. She always said, my ma, that Stan Kelton would stop at nothing. He hated being the younger son, positively hated it. He was a proper demon, even when young, to get his hands on Kelton land. And look how right she was!’ Mrs Jarvis huffed impressively. ‘When I think of poor Eloise, I could just cry.’
Jenny, who’d been about to admit defeat and scrub Mrs Jarvis from her mental list of suspects, suddenly stiffened. ‘Eloise? You mean Stan’s late wife?’
‘Hah!’ Mrs Jarvis all but shouted. ‘She should have been Sid’s wife by rights. Everyone knows that.’ And she nodded sagely.
Jenny settled back against the settee, her head slightly cocked to one side. ‘Oh?’
Moulton, who’d been about to suggest they leave, having arrived at the same conclusions as the cook, saw the change that came over her and found himself fascinated. Her eyes had developed the look of a cat sat waiting at a mouse hole. She languished on the settee like one of those Buddha statues that tourists came back with from India, looking slightly ridiculous and totally unthreatening. And yet, Moulton seemed to understand for the first time just how dangerous Jenny Starling actually was. Her reputation was certainly no whimsy and he was suddenly sure that if anybody could see her way through this damned case, it would be her. And with that realization, he felt a great weight lift from his shoulders.
Even though he couldn’t understand why she should be so interested in old family gossip, he was willing to bet his last pay
cheque that she knew what she was doing. And that whatever she learned would all be of use in the end.
So he tuned in his ears and took it all in.
‘Eloise was a lovely young gal, Miss Starling,’ Mrs Jarvis said, her voice softening a little now, as she cast her mind back through the years. It was amazing, Jenny thought absently and not for the first time, the power that nostalgia had over people. The good old days were always golden, it seemed. ‘We went to school together. She was a little older than me, but she never looked down on us younger ones, the way you can when you’re a kid. She was as sweet on the inside as she looked on the outside, and all of us kids knew that Sid Kelton was head over heels in love with her. When she was fifteen, he asked her to the church dance. They looked really good together. Old man Kelton, Sid’s father, was right pleased about it too, her being a butcher’s daughter, like. And then . . .’ her face clouded, ‘then Stan got wind of it. And that was that.’
Jenny again said, ‘Oh?’ and the single bland syllable was once more enough to launch Mrs Jarvis on in her tirade.
‘Well, Stan couldn’t have that could he? Sid would marry, have a son, and that would be that. Stan would never get his hands on the farm. So he did the most wicked thing you could ever think of.’
Jenny’s eyes widened in sudden understanding, and she slowly nodded. ‘He seduced Eloise,’ she guessed, her voice flat and grim.
Mrs Jarvis nodded. ‘I daresay you want to blame Eloise for that. After all, if she was in love with Sid, she should have had the gumption to stick with him. But you didn’t know Stan in them days. He was a handsome devil, much more so than Sid. And he had, oh, I don’t know how to describe it really. A kind of . . . energy that fair took your breath away. All the girls felt it. And when he’d made up his mind, nobody could say no to him. Before anyone knew it, he’d swept her off her feet. Poor Eloise, she was such a simple-hearted gal. I don’t suppose she knew what hit her. And then . . . there she was, married to the wrong brother, living at the farm with her real true love lost to her forever.’
Jenny ignored this rather over-romantic assessment. ‘But didn’t Sid carry on living at the farm as well?’ she asked, sounding puzzled.
‘Aye, he did,’ Mrs Jarvis said. ‘It was his home, wasn’t it? Where else was he going to go? But it must have been torture for him — well, for them both really, I imagine. But it got Stan what he wanted, didn’t it?’ she pointed out savagely. ‘Sid never did look at another woman after Eloise. And when he came back from hospital that time so . . . well . . . he was like a shell of a man. A thin, pitiful husk with no guts left in him — no gumption at all,’ she shook her head sadly. ‘By then Eloise had had Bert, of course. A few years later she had Bill, then finally Delia. And Stan had the farm in every way that mattered and, more importantly, he knew that Bert, his own son, would one day inherit as well. What did it matter to him that he made Eloise and Sid’s life a misery? I sometimes think it was an act of mercy that Eloise died when she did, giving birth to Delia and all, I really do. It got her out from under it all, and far and away to a better place. It fair broke Sid’s heart though, for all that.’
Jenny nodded. It all had such a tragic ring of truth about it. She glanced tellingly at Moulton, who took the hint and got to his feet.
‘Well, thank you, Mrs Jarvis, for your time,’ he said politely, and Mrs Jarvis flustered and blustered, and pressed another mince pie on them as she led them to the door, all animosity now forgotten.
Once outside, Jenny glanced across thoughtfully at the Brays’ cottage, but after a pause, turned back down the little footpath.
‘Well, that seems to be that,’ Moulton said, his mouth still full of the mince pie he was munching.
‘Yes,’ Jenny agreed thoughtfully. ‘But it does open up some rather interesting questions though, doesn’t it?’
Does it? Moulton wondered, and glanced across at her, then promptly slipped in the snow and fell flat on his backside with a painful yelp.
‘Careful!’ Jenny said sharply, quickly hiding a smile. ‘It’s the thaw. It always makes things more slippery,’ she added with unctuous sympathy.
Moulton cursed roundly and struggled to his feet. He glared at the cook, wondering why she should be as sure-footed as a mountain goat. With her hourglass bulk, she should be as precarious as an elephant on an ice rink.
‘Questions?’ he finally said petulantly. ‘About what?’
‘About Sid of course,’ Jenny said impatiently. ‘I think, you know, that you and I should go to the pub after lunch. Have a Boxing Day drink, what do you say?’
Moulton rubbed the cold wet snow off his derrière and scowled at her, wondering what she was up to now. And mourning the loss of his mince pie, which had landed in a particularly grey and slushy snowdrift.
* * *
The Lamb and Dog was nicely crowded with lunchtime post-Christmas revellers when Jenny and Moulton walked in a few hours later. There was one of those brief, embarrassing lulls in the level of conversation as the locals assessed the newcomers, but when Jenny carefully nudged her way to the bar and ordered two brandies, the landlord happily obliged and normal talk quickly resumed.
Mandy’s father was a big blond man, which meant that his daughter had to take after her mother. His eyes were as curious as those of a bird as he handed the brandies over. Jenny pushed Moulton’s glass along the bar, where he’d managed to wedge himself in, between the greengrocer and a church warden. She left her own drink untouched on the bar. She rarely drank, and certainly not to excess, ever since that cringe-making incident a couple of years ago concerning herself, a couple of Trafalgar Square pigeons and a merchant seaman who went by the unfortunate name of Alphonso Font.
‘You’re the cook up at the farm, then?’ Mandy’s father asked, and she smiled at him, glad to have been given such a perfect opening.
‘That’s right. Although I’m wishing now I’d never answered the damned advert.’ She heaved a much put-upon sigh.
The landlord nodded sympathetically. ‘I can imagine. It’s not what you’d expect, is it?’ he added, somewhat unnecessarily, Jenny thought. Then he nodded down the bar. ‘That the cop in charge then?’
Jenny, aware of the many ears that were quivering like antennae in her direction, nodded firmly. ‘I’m afraid so. The poor man had to stay Christmas Day up at the farm. Today, we both needed to get out and about a bit. It’s terrible up there at the moment — the atmosphere and all, you wouldn’t believe it. And when I think of poor old Sid . . .’ she let her voice trail off sadly.
There was a general sighing all around her. And just as she’d hoped, it broke the ice.
‘I knew old Sid well,’ a deep-pitched voice piped up from her right, and when she turned to look, found that it belonged to such a weathered, craggy face that the man could only be a farm worker. The years of his outdoors life were stamped all over his body. ‘Known him yonks, I have.’
‘I was only there a day before . . . well . . . it happened . . . but he seemed like such a nice old man,’ she agreed, her voice soft and sad. There was something so homely and downright comforting about her that the villagers’ natural reticence around strangers waved a collective white flag and sank beneath the waves.
‘He was. There was nothing wrong with good old Sid,’ somebody else said, with rather too much emphasis on the ‘Sid.’
But Jenny was not here to find out how much the locals hated Stan — that much she was taking for granted. No, it was Sid’s past that she wanted to ferret out.
‘It seems such a shame that he never married,’ she mused. ‘I mean, that he never had a son to look after him. I suppose it’s not my place to say this, but his brother did seem to . . . well . . . to bully him a little. I couldn’t help but wonder why no woman had snapped Sid up a long time ago. In his younger days, he must have cut quite a dashing figure, I would have said.’
Not that I’d really noticed for myself, she left unsaid, but her tone left little room for doubt.
He
r quaint old-fashioned words, her implied modesty and her very appearance, which so perfectly matched that of the archetypal rotund and friendly cook, soon had cautious tongues loosened, and she was the darling of the bar in next to no time. Moulton could only admire the performance in respectful silence and keep to the background, so as not to queer her pitch.
Everyone began to reminisce about Sid Kelton. She heard again the story of Eloise, and was not surprised to have Mrs Jarvis confirmed in her opinion that everyone knew that Eloise was Sid’s girl, and should have been Sid’s wife by rights. She heard, yet again, the sad tale of the changes in Sid when he came back from the hospital.
‘Coughing something awful, he was.’ One farm worker, now long since retired, finished off his account of meeting Sid in the pub a few weeks after he came out. ‘Hardly recognized him. Like a man who’d had all his juice sucked out of him, leaving just a dry old stick in his place. And him then having to go back to the farm, with Eloise being there, and young Bert and all . . . I can tell you, I felt right sorry for him, so I did.’
There was a general murmur and shaking of sorrowful heads. Jenny sighed and shook her own head mournfully. ‘It seems such a shame. But surely some of the village girls were interested?’ she fished openly, but again there was a general murmur of regret.
‘Sid didn’t want no one but Eloise,’ the landlord took up the tail. ‘My ma tells me my own sister Fanny was fond of Sid, and would have took him on, even with his chest being like it was, but Sid . . . well, poor old Sid never did get over Eloise.’
‘But surely,’ Jenny said, her round face a picture of sympathetic innocence, ‘before that bad spell in the hospital . . . well . . . him being a young man still, surely there were some local girls he . . . ?’ She said it with such understanding, and with her wide blue eyes so lacking in disapproval, that nobody took offence.
