Seeker, The

by Brindle, J. T.

  ‘Who called them then? How did they know?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ Eileen went to the door and opened it. ‘Yes?’ She recognised Inspector Lowe right away.

  Taking his identity wallet out of his jacket pocket, he held it up. ‘Is Mrs Fellowes at home?’ When Eileen replied that she was, he went on, ‘Good. I’d like a word with her. I won’t take up much of her time.’

  Suspecting from his manner that he had no idea there had been another attack, Eileen did her best to keep them out, for Ida’s sake. ‘Mrs Fellowes isn’t well,’ she told him. ‘Perhaps you’d like to call back. Tomorrow maybe.’

  ‘No. I’d like a word now, if you please. Like I say, I won’t keep her too long.’

  Inside the house, Ida listened. Hobbling to the door, she pushed her way through. ‘You heard what she said. I’m not well. Clear off and leave me alone.’

  The sergeant’s eyes opened wide when he saw how cut and bruised she was. ‘Been in a fight with a bear, have you?’ he said, half smiling.

  One cutting glance from the inspector and the smile vanished. ‘Sorry to see you’ve injured yourself, Mrs Fellowes.’ The older man’s curiosity was heightened. ‘Can I ask how you managed to do that?’

  Before Ida could make some stinging retort, and since he was already here, Eileen thought he should know. ‘She was attacked, that’s how she was injured,’ she announced. ‘Right outside this house in the early hours of this morning.’ Contemptuously she went on, ‘It was probably the same man who murdered her husband – the one you should have arrested weeks ago.’

  Ida glared at Eileen, then turned her anger on the inspector. ‘Is that why you’re here?’ she demanded. ‘To tell me you’ve caught my husband’s murderer at long last?’

  ‘No such luck, I’m afraid, but we’ll get him, don’t you worry.’ He looked at her mangled face, with the many superficial scratches and a few very nasty deep cuts, almost as though the tip of a knife had been zig-zagged along her skin. ‘You were attacked, you say.’

  Ida remained sullen.

  ‘I think we’d better talk, don’t you?’

  With obvious ill will, Ida stepped back to let them in, exchanging glances with Eileen who anticipated a tongue-lashing and was already wishing she hadn’t opened her big mouth.

  The sergeant was firm but surprisingly gentle. ‘Have you any idea who might have attacked you?’ He had his notebook open but as yet the page was blank.

  ‘No.’ Ida was deliberately difficult. ‘I’ve already told you,’ she snapped, ‘I heard a noise and went downstairs. I thought I saw someone prowling about outside and I went to investigate. After that I’m not sure. I felt something in my back, a fist, I think. I’m not sure. Whoever it was came after me, chased me into the house.’ She paused, reliving the nightmare, before continuing in a quieter voice, ‘I hid in the cupboard until they’d gone. That’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘Did they speak at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you didn’t see their face?’

  ‘I’ve already said.’

  ‘Do you think it might have been the same person who attacked you before?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Ida retorted. She wasn’t going to tell the police anything about the suitcase.

  Frustrated, the sergeant put down his notebook.

  At this point the inspector stepped forward. He wasn’t as sympathetic. ‘Look, Mrs Fellowes, you’ve been attacked twice now and not so long ago your husband was murdered.’

  ‘Yes, and you still haven’t caught the buggers who did it, have you, eh? So why should I think you can catch the bugger who frightened me very nearly to death last night?’

  The inspector ignored her taunts. ‘The point is, we don’t want another murder on our hands, do we? If you can’t help us, what about your father-in-law?’ He recalled from the previous visit that the old man was barely conscious for most of the time.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I don’t suppose he heard anything, did he?’

  She laughed. ‘He’s ill, senile. The poor old bugger would sleep through an earthquake.’

  ‘Would you mind if I had a word with him?’

  ‘You can try.’

  Confident that the old man would have nothing to contribute, she led the inspector to his bedroom. ‘Don’t distress him,’ she warned. ‘I’ve told you, he’s very ill.’

  The inspector nodded. ‘I understand.’

  He stood by the bed and spoke to the sleeping figure. At first there was no response. Then, just as he decided Ida had been right and he was wasting his time, the old man opened his eyes and looked at him. For a moment he was struck by the beauty of the old man’s brown, shining eyes.

  ‘Mr Fellowes,’ he said softly, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but I just wondered if there was anything you wanted to tell me. Anything unusual you might have heard last night.’ It was difficult to question someone who just lay there, staring at you.

  He waited a moment but there was no response. The eyes continued to look at him, sad and vacant. They made him feel uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry to have disturbed you.’ He turned away.

  Ida ushered him from the room. ‘You should be ashamed,’ she said. And he was.

  Downstairs, Ida refused to answer any more questions, though she did agree to their having another look at the room where her husband was murdered. ‘After that, I want you out of my house.’ Upstairs just now, she had seen something in the old man’s face that had frightened her.

  When the police left, with Eileen following soon after, Ida returned to the old man’s bedroom. ‘That was the police,’ she told him, ‘come to look at the room where your son was killed.’ She waited for him to open his eyes but he didn’t. ‘Are you asleep, old man?’ She prodded him with the tip of her finger. ‘Or are you pretending?’ She sat a while, watching him, and wondering. ‘I gave you a sedative last night,’ she said softly, ‘so you couldn’t have heard anything, and even if you did, it wouldn’t have meant anything to you, would it, eh?’

  He lay there, unmoving. Very still. Silent as always.

  ‘That man, the inspector.’ She leaned closer. ‘Did you recognise him? Just now, when he spoke to you and you opened your eyes, I thought you recognised him.’

  No response.

  ‘Because if you did, that means you’re not as dumb as you’d like me to believe.’

  Still no response.

  ‘You loved your son, didn’t you, eh?’ She was gazing out of the window now, her mind drifting. ‘He looked after you all those years, gave up everything for you, but you were too much for him and he had to put you in a hospital.’ She prodded him again. ‘It nearly broke his heart, did you know that? When I came along and seduced him into marrying me, he thought I was in love. He didn’t know I was doing it for my own purpose.’ She giggled softly. ‘I’d seen the article about the young woman roaming the lanes. “The Seeker”, that’s what the newspapers called her.’ Her smile froze. ‘But I knew straightaway who she was. You can understand how I couldn’t let her get to you before I did.’

  She reached out and took hold of his hand. It was cold to the touch. ‘I never wanted your son,’ she said, bringing her sorry gaze back to the old man’s face. ‘It was you I wanted. I put up with his hands all over me and I lay there always uncomplaining while he satisfied himself, using me like a man might use a whore.’ Her features stiffened. ‘I hated it. I always hated it!’

  Her voice breaking with emotion, she went on, ‘I had to be near you. That’s why I had you removed from that hospital, so I could keep you here, safe with me. I promised her, you see. You know why, don’t you, eh? We both know why.’

  There was a span of silence while she caressed his hand, her eyes drawn back to the skies outside, and her old heart aching to be free. A tear fell from her eyes, trickled down her face and fell on the back of his hand. She wiped it away. ‘I loved you so much,’ she whispered. ‘I missed you… all
those years, and you never came back. I learned to hate you, just like she did.’

  With that she laid his hand beneath the covers and made him comfortable. She didn’t speak again and quietly left the room.

  Behind her, the old man opened his eyes and stared after her.

  He was crying. Her words had struck deep.

  As the inspector climbed into the car, he paused, looking back at the house, his brow furrowing in puzzlement. ‘I wonder.’ Tapping his fingers on the side of the car, he cast his mind back to a day many years before. The pictures were blurred. Time had eroded his memory.

  Sergeant Coley put the car into gear and moved away. They drove along the lanes and out on to the open road, and still the inspector was silent, obviously deep in thought. Another few miles and Coley had to ask, ‘Is everything all right, sir?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Sir?’

  Jerking his head round, Inspector Lowe seemed irritated. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  The older man replied hesitantly, still thinking, still trying to remember. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘About what?’

  He jerked his thumb back towards the lanes. ‘Just now, when you were questioning Ida Fellowes.’

  ‘It didn’t do us much good, did it, sir? I mean, she told us nothing we couldn’t have worked out for ourselves.’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I can’t be sure but I’ve got a gut feeling I’ve seen that woman before. Something was niggling at me the last time we came here, but now I can’t get it out of my mind.’ He had to be sure, though. In this game there was no room for doubt. ‘Years ago,’ he said. ‘A bad case, one that got away, if you like.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Coley was curious. ‘What kind of case?’

  Inspector Lowe stared straight ahead, his thoughts back there, in that house. ‘One of the unsolved,’ he murmured. ‘To this day, it still haunts me.’ He turned then, informing the sergeant in hushed tones, ‘It was one of the worst murder cases I’ve ever been involved in.’

  12

  ‘Two customers since opening. I’m not likely to get rich this way, am I?’ May had her backside on a chair and her feet on another. There was a steaming mug of coffee in front of her and the radio on in the background. ‘Hear that?’ she said, turning up the volume. ‘ “Single currencies and federal Europe”. I always thought it was just going to be a big open, friendly trading market. It’s all changed now though.’ She tutted, turning down the volume again. ‘Honestly, I sometimes wonder if the politicians know what they’re doing.’

  ‘They’re all the same.’ Having finished stacking the towels on the shelves, Libby joined her. ‘You pays your money and you takes your pick, isn’t that what they say?’

  May laughed. ‘Are we talking about towels or politicians?’

  Libby smiled, thinking what good company May was. ‘Whatever fits,’ she said, and fell into a chair, thankful to take the weight off her feet.

  They drank their coffee, and the conversation drifted to men. ‘I’m past all that now,’ May sighed, ‘but there was a time, oh, many years ago, when a certain man could have made an honest woman of me.’ Her eyes clouded over and she lapsed into silence.

  Libby was intrigued. ‘I’ve never seen you look so serious.’ In fact, just then May seemed almost like a stranger.

  ‘It was a serious love affair. The nearest I’ve ever come to getting married.’

  ‘You never told me that, May,’ Libby said cautiously. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘Just a man.’

  ‘Was he in love with you?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And did you love him?’

  ‘Like I’ve never loved anyone before or since.’

  ‘So why did you never marry?’

  May sipped her coffee, seeming not to have heard.

  Reluctant to press the point, Libby discreetly observed May’s face, thinking how she had always thought of her like a sister. Now, suddenly, she hardly knew her at all. There was a cruel hardness in May’s face that she didn’t recognise.

  Quiet now, Libby averted her eyes, sipping her coffee and wondering what could have happened to May all those years ago to make her so bitter.

  After a while, May answered. ‘Men are best left alone. They worm their way into a woman’s heart until she’s like putty in his hands, ready to do anything to keep him.’ She smiled, a pitiful expression, betraying a deeper emotion. ‘Life makes cowards of us all, don’t you think, Libby?’

  Libby didn’t know what to think. ‘It can be difficult,’ she answered cagily. ‘I mean, look at me. Dave assures me he isn’t having an affair but I still don’t know whether to believe him or not.’

  ‘Follow him.’

  Astounded, Libby retorted, ‘I can’t do that!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, it’s not right, is it? I mean, following him. It would be as if I didn’t trust him.’

  ‘You just said you don’t.’

  Exasperated, Libby shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Not really.’

  ‘What did you mean then?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure. I feel, oh, I don’t know, left out, somehow. It’s as though he’s got something, or someone, on his mind.’

  ‘Do you want to know if he’s having an affair or not?’

  Lost for words, Libby nodded.

  ‘There you are then. Follow him, and you might find out.’

  ‘But it seems such a sly thing to do to your own husband.’

  ‘I told you, Libby. That’s what men do to you. They make you do cruel things that go against your nature.’ She had an odd, faraway look in her eyes.

  Unsure of herself, and feeling unusually nervous, Libby stood up. ‘Dave assured me he wasn’t having an affair, and I have to trust him. If I can’t do that, our marriage counts for nothing.’

  ‘You’re too naive, Libby.’

  ‘I won’t follow him, and that’s that.’

  ‘Because you’re afraid of what you’ll find out?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  The phone rang. May was the nearest, so she snatched up the receiver. ‘Draper’s shop.’

  While she listened she looked at Libby, beckoning with her finger as she spoke. ‘Yes, she is. Just a minute.’ Holding out the receiver, she told Libby, ‘It’s Jack Arnold. He wants a word with you.’

  ‘Hello, Jack.’ Turning her back on May, Libby bent her head to the phone. ‘Is anything the matter?’ She suspected he wouldn’t be ringing her unless it was something to do with their illicit meeting the other day.

  While Jack explained his reason for calling, Libby’s whole body seemed to sag. ‘Are you sure? Couldn’t he just be out with a client? Or maybe he’s got a viewing some miles away.’ Dropping herself into the chair, she glanced up. May saw at once that the colour had drained from her face.

  ‘All right, Jack. Thanks for letting me know. You will ring if he comes back to the office, won’t you?’ She listened again, her eyes appealing to May as she told him, ‘Don’t be silly, Jack. No, honestly, I’m grateful. Besides, you’re only doing what we both agreed.’ Slowly, she returned the receiver to its cradle.

  May was quickly at her side. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Getting out of the chair, Libby walked about, her arms up and her hands behind her neck while she mentally ran over what Jack had told her. ‘He says Dave wasn’t there when he got to the office this morning. Apparently there was a note on his desk to say Dave would be out for the day, and could Jack either take over his appointments or, if he was too busy for that, would he phone the clients and make new appointments.’

  May stood by the towel rack. ‘Where’s he gone?’

  ‘According to Jack, he didn’t say, but soon after he got the note, Jack thought he might have gone out on a new viewing. He looked through the secretary’s notes and he listened to the answerphone. He even rummaged through Dave’s des
k, but there was nothing to suggest that Dave had gone to meet a client.’

  Stopping in her tracks, she swung round, telling May in a sombre voice, ‘Jack contacted all the clients in Dave’s appointment book and, according to them, Dave had given no indication that he might not be able to make the meetings. As far as they were concerned, he would be turning up today, as arranged.’ She racked her brains for an answer. ‘It seems he just took off on a whim.’ She daren’t think of the alternative.

  May did though, and it was in her eyes when she remarked meaningfully, ‘If you ask me, it’s all very strange.’

  ‘You’re sure he’s having an affair, aren’t you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think, Libby,’ May answered diplomatically. ‘It’s what you think that counts.’

  Libby’s face fell. ‘Honestly, May, I don’t know what he could be up to.’ Ashamed and unhappy, she looked away. ‘There is something going on, though, I’m sure of it now.’ She bowed her head and seemed close to tears.

  Moving closer, May urged kindly, ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  Composing herself, Libby revealed calmly, ‘These past weeks he hasn’t been sleeping too well. Remember? I told you.’

  May nodded.

  Libby went on, ‘He had a bad night last night. I heard him downstairs moving about for, oh, hours, it was. I didn’t go down because I don’t know what to say to him any more.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I’ve said it all before. I ask him if there’s anything on his mind and he says it’s business, and that’s as far as we get. It’s been that way for some time. It gets better, then it gets worse. I don’t know where I am any more.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was almost three o’clock when he finally came to bed. I asked him if he was all right and he said he was, that I should go to sleep, and he was sorry if he’d woken me. We talked for a while, about everything and nothing. In the end I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, I could hear the kids downstairs, and Dave was not in bed. I went down and they were all in the kitchen. Dave was cooking breakfast.’

  ‘And?’ May knew that wasn’t all.