“When would that be?”
“Oh, early eighties maybe. Just before that they said to somebody that Jean always had a current best friend, and either she broke them in, and then lost interest in them, or they rebelled and moved out. She may have changed when she ‘got God,’ but I wouldn’t put my money on it, would you?”
No, Eve thought. Though she had to admit that, judging by the present-day Jean Mannering, she didn’t see the magnetism and vital attraction of the woman. Perhaps religion had turned her conventional.
• • •
Detective Constable Omkar Rani was halfway through the second of the corridored sections of Autumn Prospect when he came upon Mrs. Lancaster, who was delighted her turn was come.
“I’ve been watching you,” she said. “Through a crack in my door. You’ve been ages. You didn’t see me, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Rani. “You must have been clever about it.”
“Oh I am. You have to be here. The slightest thing and some of them complain. I’m Dora Lancaster, by the way. Dorothea on the birth certificate. Everyone here calls me ‘Old Mrs. Lancaster,’ which is nonsense when ‘old’ is what all of us are.”
“Of course it is. How did it come about?”
“My son married a flashy woman who makes a bit of a stir in Bradford social circles. Talk about a big fish in diminishing waters! So I became ‘old’ Mrs. Lancaster long before I came here . . . You’re a good-looking boy.”
“Thank you. And you’re a good-looking lady.”
“Good looking doesn’t apply after seventy-five. We’ve got our minds on other things, and so have our nearest and dearest: who’s going to get the loot?” She cackled. “It won’t be young Mrs. Lancaster or her foolish husband, I can tell you that. So what do you want?”
“I want to talk about the day Mrs. Southwell died.”
“Well, I guessed that. I told the other policeman who came around what I was doing that day. He was very offhand, and seemed to have made up his mind that none of us could have done it. Probably thought we were too feeble to have held the pillow down. So I just answered the questions he asked and nothing else.”
Rani looked at her, and she looked back almost flirtatiously.
“I’d better see if I can ask some other questions, then, hadn’t I?”
“You could try asking questions about Evelyn.”
“All right: how did you get on with Mrs. Southwell?”
“Not badly. Quite well really. We’d both got all our marbles, which is more than can be said for some of them here. Of course she was a show-off, and basically a rather silly person, because everything had to come back to herself. But you could have a conversation with her, and that’s a bit of a miracle because topics of conversation don’t abound in places like this.”
“I suppose they don’t. When was the last time you had a real conversation with Mrs. Southwell?”
“On the afternoon of the day she was murdered. Say four thirty to five.”
Rani’s eyebrows rose, and so did his heart.
“That’s very exact.”
“I always have my tea at four thirty. Everyone knows that and knows that’s the time to call on me. Evelyn did that quite often: she liked tea and a biscuit, or a piece of cake or a little sandwich. It makes a break in the day.”
“So she came in and had a cup of tea, something to eat, and you talked?”
“Yes.”
“Had she come because there was something she wanted to talk about?”
“Yes. Or that was my impression. She’d had a visit from a woman. Or not exactly a visit. Not a social call.”
“What sort of a call then?”
“You might say a snooping one.” She cackled again. “More like a visit from the social services. A lot of dogooders they are, who do precious little good when it comes down to it.”
“Did the visitor say she was from the DSS?”
“Not really. She came about lunchtime or just after and flashed some kind of ID with her photograph on it. She said there were worries about security.”
“Oh really. What kind of worries? Did she say?”
“Worries about keys getting into the wrong hands.”
“So what did she propose to do about that?”
“She wanted to take a record of Evelyn’s keys, so that if an identical one turned up, it could be identified.”
Rani pondered this gnomic rationale.
“Well, I can see why Mrs. Southwell might have been worried,” he said.
“She gave over the keys readily enough, but then she started thinking. Wouldn’t it have been better to change the locks? The woman came back in twenty minutes, said they had a record of both of them now and she needn’t worry, because she was perfectly safe.”
“Was that all?”
“Yes. She marched out when Evelyn started to ask her questions.”
“And did Mrs. Southwell say what she looked like? Did she know her?”
“Oh no. She didn’t know her, not even by sight. She said she was a typical social worker—fairly efficient and usually sympathetic but no time to be anything more than that. The sort who can’t wait to be gone, but usually disguise it pretty well. We all know the type here.”
Rani liked Mrs. Lancaster and thought that, for all her age and infirmities, she would make a superb witness in the box. He thanked her, and went on his way full of hope that he was on to something. He first went around to the other two detective constables doing their run-of-the-mill job from door to door. None of them had been told about a social worker who was worried about keys and security. They both agreed to ask specifically from then on, and to check with the residents they had already talked to. Then Rani strolled over to the porter’s lodge.
“Did you happen to have any social workers visiting patients on the day Mrs. Southwell died?” he asked. The porter flicked back the pages of his visitors’ book and peered at the entry.
“We call them residents, not patients, young fellow. Mrs. Ellenborough called to see Mr. Baxter. He won’t be with us long. Miss Tonstall visited Mrs. Walton.”
“When was this?”
“First at half past ten. Left at a quarter to eleven. The second at ten past eleven, left at a quarter past.”
“Anyone come at lunchtime or just after?”
“No, just the two that whole day. That’s pretty much par for the course.”
“Any other visitors—family, friends—around lunchtime?”
“No. That’s not a usual time to visit. There was one at a quarter to twelve, then not another till ten to four.”
“Were you here in your lodge all the time during lunch hour?”
He peered down again.
“No. I note when something comes up. Security isn’t top-notch here because there’s only me, or my relief at nights. We do try to put up a show of efficiency, though. I was out for ten minutes to see Mr. Baxter, who’d been upset by the social worker. That was one thirty to forty. Then out again when I went to replenish the stock of blankets. That was from two fifteen to two forty. Then I was on duty continuous till I finished at five.”
“Did you see anyone around? Anyone who might be apparently loitering but really was keeping an eye on you to see if you left your post?”
He thought. Rani guessed he was slow but thorough.
“There was a woman. Neat and tidy. Went to the hairdresser’s regularly, or did her own very cleverly. My missus was a hairdresser, so I notice. Light makeup or none at all I’d guess, though I was too far away to be sure.”
“Clothes?”
“Short jacket, sensible design, probably waterproof, beige color, then an old-fashioned sort of skirt, just below the knees, and flat shoes. Didn’t look the sort to loiter, but she was sort of shilly-shallying around.”
“What do you mean? What did she do?”
“Well, she passed the entrance slowly, and I took notice, but not particular notice, but then she came back past the door, walking a little faster, a
nd I wondered what she could have been doing, because there’s no shops along there, only houses, and she didn’t seem to have had the time to have made a proper call. The last I saw of her she was on the other side of the road, going through the gate of that house over there—that one, see?—with the for sale notice up. Then I went to do the blankets.”
Bingo! thought Rani.
CHAPTER 13
The Impostor
“So let’s sum up: what do we have so far?” Superintendent Collins asked Rani, when he had listened to his account of his talk with Mrs. Lancaster. “First and most important the fact that Evelyn Southwell had a visit, during the afternoon of the day she died, from someone probably posing as an emissary of the DSS or some other branch of the social services. In the course of the visit, the woman took Mrs. Southwell’s keys, returning them later.”
“That’s the important point, isn’t it?” Rani put in.
“Oh yes. Since the porter seems to have known little about her beyond her appearance, and since she seems to have done the same to none of the other residents, that was obviously the purpose of her visiting Mrs. Southwell. I must admit I did have a twinge of doubt while you were telling me.”
“Why was that, sir?”
“It seemed such a rotten story. Couldn’t she have come up with anything better? But then I thought that any story, however convincing, had the same drawback: if the woman was legitimate why hadn’t she got the relevant keys from the porter? That way she would have avoided disturbing a vulnerable old person—Southwell may not have seemed particularly vulnerable, but old people always have a greater stock of worries than the rest of us because they are comparatively weak, mentally and physically.”
“And the answer to your question, sir, is that the porter would be much more reluctant to give up keys, even temporarily, without making a thorough check on the person asking and the reason for the request. Not to mention that the porter would have been able to give a physical description of the visitor to us after the murder.”
“Exactly. Mrs. Southwell only began to have doubts after she had given up the keys, and she quite soon got them back. The whole incident became something to talk about at tea time. Anything happening in an old people’s home becomes a topic of conversation.”
“Yes, sir. And in fact Mrs. Southwell doesn’t seem to have had any serious doubt that the visitor was a member of the social services. I suppose we’ve got to remember that we’re probably dealing with an actress. And with someone who, in her job as traveling vicar, no doubt deals a lot with the social services and has had many opportunities to observe their manner and their ways of approaching old people.”
Collins shot him a glance, and remained sunk in thought.
“Are we, though?” he said at length. “Dealing, I mean, with someone who is both a vicar and actress—both sides of a saucy joke. I need convincing that we are. Do we have any reason to associate Evelyn Southwell’s murder with someone whose path crossed with hers, if it ever did, thirty-odd years before?”
Rani nodded, but confidently. He had had longer to think of this than Collins.
“I’d say there is a reason for thinking a connection is likely, sir. Mrs. Southwell had had a visit from Eve McNabb a few days before. They had discussed those happenings you mention of thirty-odd years before. That same evening Eve rang Jean Mannering and told her the gist of the conversation. How many visitors do you think Southwell had in a month? Maybe several when she had that eighty-fifth birthday, but I bet that’s all died down.” He thought, then added shamefacedly: “I should have asked the porter.”
“No harm done.” Collins jumped up and went to the door. He barked to the newest recruit to the detective force: “Ring Autumn Prospect, an old people’s setup in Keighley. Talk to the porter. Ask how many visitors—recorded visitors—Evelyn Southwell had had in the four weeks before her death.”
He came back into his office and sat down.
“Okay. This is definitely something that needs to be looked into. But we mustn’t forget that there might be a hundred and one things in Evelyn Southwell’s private or professional life that are much more important, much more likely to lead to murder.”
“Yes, sir. But we ought also to ask, if such a thing turns up, why it has suddenly become important when Southwell was in her last years.”
“Fair enough . . .” Collins thought, then said: “The reason I’m uneasy is that this business of getting John McNabb out of May’s life is not only way in the past. It’s also the fact that it never became a criminal matter, or even a matter of any kind of importance. It was successful. John tamely packed his bags and went. If the police had been called in, they might have arrested Jean later on a charge of wasting police time or some kind of minor conspiracy, but it wouldn’t have been worse than that. Why has the incident become important now?”
The serious-minded face of the new detective constable poked itself around the door.
“No recorded visits to Mrs. Southwell, other than Miss McNabb’s, in the month before she died, sir.”
“Thank you, Ackley.”
Collins chewed at imaginary gum in his mouth.
“Now let’s get her method straight in our minds. She—the woman observed by the porter—studies Autumn Prospect at lunchtime and takes advantage of the porter’s absences. Probably she doesn’t know she’s been spotted. Then she comes back at night. By then your man had clocked off, hadn’t he?”
“Oh yes. But the night porter has been talked to, as soon as doubts were raised about the death. He usually watches television and dozes most evenings if nothing comes up. The night nurse, if she spots anything unusual, goes around to see that everything’s all right. It’s usually just lights left on. That’s what happened in this case, around about ten o’clock, when she found Southwell alive and asleep. The porter went around at eleven, checked all the outside doors, then locked the main door and went to sleep in his chair, dozing off and waking at odd times through the night.”
“If only he’d locked the main door first, then gone and checked up around the flats.”
“True. Our man suggested that. The porter protested that he might have had to unlock the door and let a late visitor out.”
“Tough. Anyway, it doesn’t seem as though Autumn Prospect is plagued by many visitors at any time of the day, let alone late at night.”
“Well, that’s when the murderer will have got out, sir: late at night when the porter was doing his rounds.”
“All this suggests that some reconnaissance was done in the days leading up to the murder. She—or he—established there was a routine, and took advantage of it.”
“That may account for the gap between Eve McNabb ringing up Jean Mannering and the actual committing of the murder.”
Collins sighed.
“You won’t give up on our lady vicar, will you, Rani? Are lady vicars particularly prone to homicide?”
“Not so far as I know, sir. But reputation, a stainless career to put on the resumé, must be very important to the clergy.”
Collins had heard talk in the police canteen about Rani and Eve, and now risked a reference to it.
“What is your lady friend doing at the moment, Rani?”
“She was going to talk to a retired teacher from Blackfield Road this morning. We’re supposed to be meeting when I finish my shift in ten minutes.”
“Well, why don’t you bring her up here for a chat before you go gallivanting or whatever you plan on doing? Just in case something has come up.”
Rani nodded, and as soon as he had gone, Collins glanced at his case notes and phoned a number in the Huddersfield area. When he got a recorded message giving a mobile number, he rang that.
“Yes?” A warm, concerned voice, not at all offhand or bossy.
“Is that the Reverend Mannering?”
“It is.”
“Ah. This is Chief Superintendent Collins of the Leeds CID.”
“What can I help you with, Chief Superintendent?”
“I wanted to have a word with you about the death of Mrs. Evelyn Southwell.” There was a silence. “I believe you knew the lady years ago when you both lived in Crossley.”
“I knew of her, Superintendent. I don’t recall that our paths ever crossed. I’d actually been to the Blackfield Road Primary as a tot, but that was before her time.”
“Yes, and before Mrs. McNabb’s time too. You did know Mrs. McNabb quite well, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes. She was a lovely person. It was terrible to hear of her death recently. Sixty-seven is no great age these days, is it?”
“No, it’s not. I believe her daughter, Eve, rang you recently after she’d talked to Mrs. Southwell.”
“That’s right, she did.” Again a silence. Collins registered that the voice was beginning to sound less warm.
“I wonder if I could come and talk to you. Or if you could come yourself to Leeds and talk to me here.”
“I’m in Bradford at the moment . . . I think the best thing would be for me to come over. Is it Millgarth? Right. I’ll ask at the desk for you. If I can find parking, it won’t take long.”
Collins thanked her and put the phone down. He deputed Ackley to meet her at the desk and take her to one of the more cheerful interview rooms. Then he greeted Rani and Eve.
“Thanks for coming. I remember saying we should keep in touch so that I knew anything you knew. Come into my office so you can tell me about your talk with this teacher.”
“There’s not much to tell of a factual nature,” said Eve, settling into an armchair, with Rani behind her. “But we did talk about some things that fill in the background of the characters concerned. George Wilson is a retired teacher, and he’s lived in Crossley most of his life. Inevitably he knew Jean Mannering, and he worked for Mrs. Southwell and I learned a lot about her.”
“And the community?” pressed Collins. “I’d be interested in hearing whether people in the village knew about Mannering’s lesbianism, and how they reacted.”
“Yes, we did talk about that. A split reaction, as you might expect. For example, when Jean’s parents told her it was time she moved away from home, most of the village assumed it was her sexual orientation they were objecting to, and some thought they were being very old-fashioned in reacting like that. George, though, thought the parents were fed up with being bossed around and organized in their own home.”
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