Last Post

by Robert Barnard

  “Don’t!” said Miss Dougall, shuddering. “Anyway, after a time your father believed her, was convinced she was serious, and in the end said he’d be on the plane. Jean said he’d better be because that was something that would be monitored, and the child pornography would only be removed after he had flown out.”

  “And that was that?”

  Dougie looked down into her lap, and spoke low.

  “Not quite. When she had finished the phone call, she left the office and found Evelyn Southwell standing outside, grinning. ‘Well done,’ she said; ‘you’ve solved a knotty problem. We’ll both be the better for it, and May will be too. Like me to go down to Heathrow and do the monitoring? It’s the sort of thing I’d enjoy.’ Anyway, they talked, sparred a bit, but in the end Jean was dead tired, emotionally and physically, and she told Evelyn all the details and let her go to Heathrow. In the morning about ten she heard from her that he’d gone through passport control and presumably got on the plane.”

  “But that wasn’t the end of it?” asked Eve.

  “Well no, it wasn’t. How did you know?”

  “It never is.”

  “I suppose the torment went on because getting involved gave Evelyn a power over Jean, who had thought the plan up and done the really culpable things. It wasn’t much, but if they ever met, Evelyn would make some allusion to what had happened, to their both being in it together, to the ruse having been brilliantly effective. Then, later, it was how Evelyn’s conscience was troubling her, and how interested the church would be if they got to hear about Jean. It was so sad: the woman Jean would love to have heard from would have nothing to do with her—she would not even reply to the letters Jean sent once a year on the anniversary of their meeting. And the woman she could only associate with an episode she was bitterly ashamed of she met now and again and always got sly threats and reminders of the past. But of course for some time they hadn’t met: Evelyn Southwell had been in Autumn Prospect for over two years, and the articles when she was eighty-five hadn’t thrown up any lightly disguised threats.”

  “Was Jean Mannering expecting them to?”

  “I don’t suppose she knew Mrs. Southwell was approaching eighty-five, or that there would be local interest. I know when she saw the piece in the Halifax Guardian she read it carefully and was very relieved when there was nothing in it that could remotely refer to her.”

  “She read a lot of the local papers, did she?” asked Eve.

  “Yes, as background to her work. But she never read any one regularly because she knew all areas of Yorkshire and had worked in many of them as a troubleshooter. So she just picked up one or another paper when she saw them in the shop.”

  “That’s presumably why she didn’t know about my mother’s death when so many other friends and acquaintances had already written with condolences.”

  “Yes, that was the reason. She just hadn’t seen copies of the Halifax Guardian that had the death notice and the piece about your mother. If she had, and if I hadn’t run out of milk one morning, all this would not have happened.”

  She looked beseechingly at Eve, and Eve read in her face a sort of pleading, as if she was saying: “Can’t we forget all this, so that I can go back to the lovely and cozy life I’ve been living with Jean?” It was a pleading that knew it could not realistically nourish hope. But it gave Eve a vivid picture of Dougie as one of those religious people who loved submitting themselves to things—the church—or to people—Jean.

  “Milk?” said Eve in a businesslike voice.

  “Yes. It was all my fault, and all my doing. You must realize that Jean had nothing to do with any of it. I usually go down to the shops just before my lunchtime, if I’m at home. Well, you’d know that, wouldn’t you, my dear? That’s when you first saw me, didn’t you? And I posted that second letter to you on the way.”

  “Yes, I saw that.”

  “Well, on the day of the first letter, I found we’d run out of milk at breakfast time, and I do like my cornflakes or Frosties, so I went down to the supermarket and on the way I posted that letter of Jean’s to your mother. I do almost all of Jean’s professional correspondence these days, and as a rule I’d post it when I went to the shop around twelve. I didn’t think twice about posting this one earlier. I knew who it was to. Jean did all her personal letters herself, and sometimes I felt just a teeny-weeny bit jealous that once a year she would write a little note to your mother, to keep in touch. I always knew, and had come to accept, that May was the great love of Jean’s life. She’d written to her regularly, and never put her own address on because it wasn’t necessary: May knew it. The letters were their only contact.”

  “So what happened?”

  “About eleven Jean rang and said: ‘You haven’t been to the post yet, I suppose?’ I was caught on the hop and I said ‘no,’ and Jean said she was in Crossley, talking to the vicar about an appeal to restore a fine stained-glass window in the church, and she’d heard about May’s death from him. She told me to hold the letter back and destroy it.”

  “That must have put you on the spot.”

  “It did. I went down to the postbox, hoping to get it from the postman who collected it, but the collections aren’t at regular times anymore, and the newsagent said it had already been done that morning, about ten thirty, so there was nothing I could do. I confessed to Jean that evening, in fear and trembling, said I was muddled and had forgotten the trip to the shop at breakfast time, and that it had already gone. Jean was very stern. She must have realized I had lied to her, and of course I realized there must have been something of a sexual nature, something compromising, in the letter.”

  “Jean could have rung me and asked me not to read the letter,” said Eve. “I would have been intrigued, but I wouldn’t have peeped.”

  “We thought of that, but then Jean realized there had been no address on the letter or envelope, and no surname. We thought anyway you could have decided not to open any letters addressed to your mother—too intrusive when she had just died. Eventually Jean decided there could be no harm in a formal letter of condolence to you, which she would naturally have sent if the other letter had not been written, and very much wanted to do.”

  “But I suppose you weren’t happy with the situation.”

  “No. I didn’t want the second letter to be written, and I didn’t think there was necessarily not going to be fallout from the first. But I accepted it was Jean’s decision, and of course she saw it should not be associated with the first letter, so I wrote it, as I usually do. We went over it to see that the tone was right, and the next day I posted it as you saw . . . I don’t know what you know about social work.”

  “Not much. Why do you ask?”

  “I was a social worker, and more often than you would think, we get threats, minor violence, being stalked. You get alert to the possibility that you are being followed. I realized the day you came over to Huddersfield that you were on my tail. By the time I got to the shops, I’d noticed you. I even got a good look at you from inside the supermarket. I was on the alert from then on. I already knew you were back when I heard the bell ringing in the downstairs flat. I had decided what I would do. I would be Jean, prove the handwriting on the first letter was not mine, and the whole nasty business would be forgotten.”

  She spoke of this extraordinary decision precisely, like a royal personage delivering an anodyne speech written for her by someone else. Indeed she could almost be talking of someone else, except for those piercing eyes.

  “Brave of you, in a way,” said Eve.

  “Brave?”

  “This wouldn’t please Jean Mannering.”

  “It didn’t when she found out. She’s such a straight person, so totally honest.” And a right tartar to people she’s got under her thumb, thought Eve. “But when it seemed that my little trick had worked, then she calmed down about it. We didn’t hear any more from you for a while, and we thought you must have accepted that this dreadful Aunt Ada had been responsible. She�
�d always had a bee in her bonnet about Jean and your mother.”

  “She does seem like a survival from another age.”

  “But then of course you rang after you’d talked to Mrs. Southwell. You got through to the number I gave you, and Jean, who was in my flat, answered the phone. I suppose that must have been the only occasion you’ve talked to her.”

  “I suppose so. Not the last though.”

  “You’ll love her if you can talk the situation over. Everyone loves her. Anyway, she got me—the ‘Jean Mannering’ you were used to—and I coped as best as I could.”

  “You coped very well. I had no suspicions.”

  “But then you struck chill into my heart with your talk about Evelyn Southwell making further trouble in the future, and enjoying all the publicity she would get. I knew you were judging the situation absolutely rightly. Jean had told me that was how she had always been. I was used to the type. You see, for most of my years as a social worker, I concentrated on old people.”

  “Really?”

  “So I know them—know all kinds, know the fears and hopes they all have in common. From what I’d heard about Mrs. Southwell from Jean, I knew she would be the kind who hated and resented being shuffled out of the limelight and hidden away from view in a home, even if it was a very good type of home. She had nothing but other old people to perform to, other ghetto dwellers. And I knew she would have had her appetite for publicity whetted by the press attention on her eighty-fifth. I knew what would be coming, and how Mrs. Southwell would enjoy it, and how Jean’s life and career would suffer for it.”

  “But would she have? Revealed it, I mean. After all, Mrs. Southwell herself was involved in it, if only in a minor way.”

  “You forget that old people have nothing to lose. There was probably no crime committed by dear Jean, and certainly none by Evelyn Southwell. She could wallow in publicity and in the destruction of Jean’s career. I tell you, I know old people.”

  Eve, who thought in this case she was right, just nodded.

  “And I’ll tell you another thing I know about old people: unless they have kept most of their faculties, which is very rare, they hate being in the position they are in—helpless, often friendless, lonely, with only a flickering screen for company and comfort. Always they wish they had died five, ten years earlier, when they still had some kind of life, and above all still had their mental faculties and hadn’t retreated into delusions. Often they know they have delusions, but can’t rid themselves of them. The state, the law, are vile to old people. Dogs and cats are treated better.”

  “You mean they are put down?”

  “Yes. Anyone who has worked with old people knows that what they want most of all is to be allowed to die with dignity. And yet politicians always speak as if what old people want is to live longer. What utter fools they are!”

  Eve left a moment’s silence, and then asked: “Have you ever been tempted to intervene yourself?”

  Miss Dougall threw her a look of cunning.

  “I’d be a fool to tell you and your friend here if I had, wouldn’t I? Let’s just say I was often tempted.”

  “And here you had a personal rather than an altruistic reason to step in, didn’t you?”

  Dougie did not hesitate. She was into a full, obsessional confession.

  “Yes, I did. Or at least personal and altruistic. I love the Anglican church—it’s been my life, and I was responsible for making it Jean’s as well. I feel so proud of everything she’s done, and so excited about everything she’s going to do. I had no choice but to do what I did. I was used to doing the donkey work of Jean’s job, but I also did some of its more unpleasant duties as well, sometimes even did them without her knowing. All I wanted to do was help. Jean has a mannerism, quite unconscious, where she brushes away situations with her hand—like this—like brushing a book off a table. She did it more than once while we discussed your conversation with Mrs. Southwell. I knew she wanted me to cope—unconsciously she wanted that. So I just went ahead and did what needed to be done. The job chose me.”

  Oh no it didn’t, thought Eve. You wanted it, and she wanted you to do it.

  “But it was very dangerous, wasn’t it?” she said. “You could so easily have been caught.”

  “Caught then? I suppose so. I didn’t think of it. It came quite naturally to me. I wasn’t acting a social worker, I was going back to being one, reverting to type. I talked to Mrs. Southwell just as I’d talked to hundreds, maybe thousands, of old people during my working lifetime. I’d watched Autumn Prospect, I knew the routines, and once I’d got the keys and taken the pattern of them, it was just a cinch. I went in, taking a torch, took up a spare pillow on her bed and pushed it down over her face. I’m quite strong—I’ve needed to be sometimes, working with helpless old women, often very large. It was so easy it must have been meant. I was out before the night porter had finished his rounds.”

  “And you didn’t feel any compassion or guilt?”

  “No. I felt good. I thought Mrs. Southwell would probably have thanked me.”

  “And what about when you got home?” asked Rani from the driving seat. “Didn’t Jean Mannering want to know where you had been?”

  “We don’t live in each other’s pockets. She’d had an evening meeting and went straight to bed when she came in. She didn’t ask the next day what I’d been doing the night before, and I didn’t tell her. We’re two independent women.”

  “And you never discussed it later, when Mrs. Southwell’s death got in the papers?”

  “Oh, I think we just said ‘poor woman,’ or something like that.”

  Rani was negotiating the Leeds traffic system, and the two women behind him lapsed into silence. Eventually he slid the car into a small space outside Millgarth Police Headquarters and darted out to open doors. Eve was already out in the queasy afternoon sunlight, but Miss Dougall waited for Rani to open her door and then got out easily and smoothly, without the creaking bones and little moans of the old. She stood erect and self-possessed, waiting for them to give her directions, and Eve was struck by the change in her. She seemed to have immense dignity, a confident composure. She was not a criminal going for a crucial interview; she was a woman of good life who was satisfied that she had an achievement to her credit—something that many might criticize or misunderstand but which she could answer for, both to herself and to God. Was this madness, Eve wondered, or an advanced and perverse case of heroine worship? Or was it a part of the role she was playing—the impression she made on Eve was of an actress playing an actress—something she had learned to do from Jean Mannering?

  They went up the steps and into the outer office of the station. People were sitting around singly or in little groups, waiting to make their complaints or meet their fates. Rani put his hand on Miss Dougall’s arm and was about to steer her to the door that led to the offices, interview rooms and cells of the station proper when it opened. Through it came the woman whom Eve now knew was Jean Mannering, accompanied by the keen young detective constable. For a moment all five people froze in their places. Then Jean Mannering ran forward.

  “Oh, Dougie! What have you done?”

  The moment of Miss Dougall’s greatness passed. She put her arms around her lover, her face on her shoulder, and sobbed into it. Suddenly she was diminished to a naughty schoolgirl who had done something beastly in the playground.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Truth

  “So what’s your take on Dougie’s version?” Rani asked Eve.

  They were at home in Derwent Road, and in the middle of a standard English meal of lamb chops and boiled potatoes. It was the first time that Rani had been properly home for any length of time since the scene in the reception area of Millgarth Police Headquarters. Eve had had plenty of time alone to mull over the situation, and she replied at once.

  “I think Jean Mannering is unlikely to dispute her account,” she said, with acid in her voice. “In fact she rubbed it in, or tried to, with her first
words. ‘What have you done?’—my foot! Thus cutting off any impulse Dougie may have later to implicate her as well.”

  Rani nodded.

  “But I don’t think Dougie will have any such impulse, do you?” he said. “She seemed utterly obsessed.”

  “Enchanted and enchained. But, by God, I’d love to find something that brought Jean into the picture.”

  “So would I. But I can’t imagine her being so unwise as to commit anything to paper that we could use as evidence. She seemed streetwise to me.”

  “Oh, she would never do that in a million years. A mere gesture of irritation—that was all that was needed. But you’re the one who has to think about trials, the Crown Prosecution Service and all that. If I get the PR job, I’ll have to think about them too, but not for this case. I’d just like to have some verbal indication that Dougie was encouraged, spurred on to do what she did.”

  “I don’t think we’ll get it.”

  “Nor do I. Because I don’t think it exists. I think that they were so close, so in each other’s minds, that no word needed to be spoken. So even if she wanted to, Dougie could never honestly say she was doing what Jean wanted her to do. But I’m sure she was, all the same . . . Don’t eat any more of that lamb if you don’t want to.”

  “I do want to. I’m just interested in what we’re talking about.”

  “I must learn some Indian dishes.”

  Eve didn’t see the look of horror cast in her direction.

  “Don’t bother,” said Rani. “You couldn’t cook Indian better than an Indian, however hard you tried.”

  “I suppose your mother is a wonderful cook.”

  “She’s a vile cook, but she’s still better than you would be at Indian food. Stick to English and European—they’re fine by me . . . Dougie was used to doing Jean’s dirty work for her. She told us that herself.”

  “Oh yes. When she said that, I thought something was coming that could tie Jean in with the murder. Instead it was the opposite. Sometimes Jean didn’t even know that dirty work was being done for her by Dougie.”