“We are concerned about her death. You will have heard about it, I’m sure. Her body has been exhumed and we found excess levels of a heart drug in it. So, we are talking to more or less everyone in the village, especially anyone who worked in the house.”
“And what in particular is it you wanted to know about, lad?”
Brown wished he would stop calling him that, but tried not to let his irritation distract him. For all Braithwaite’s couldn’t care less attitude, Brown had a funny feeling he wasn’t quite as unconcerned as all that. The muscles in his shoulders and arms looked tight, and he was drawing deep on the cigarette. “We wanted to know anything at all, anything out of the ordinary that might have happened, particularly before she died.”
He waited. He had taken that piece of Greene’s advice on board. “Wait until you see the whites of their eyes, Brown.”
He wasn’t sure if the hunting comparison was exactly right for this situation, but for the first time he could understand what Greene had meant. He bided his time.
“No unusual visitors, no extra trips out, nothing at all unusual, not that I saw or heard, any road.”
It was like there was a little imp in Brown’s head driving him on. “You were friendly with Mary Whitchurch. What about the other staff members? Stella, for instance, or the Kirk woman?
Braithwaite shrugged. “All the same to me, women. Pays to get on with them, I suppose, in that sort of job, living in each other’s pockets like. Women can cause trouble otherwise, Brown, I mean…sergeant. As you’ll find out for yourself one of these fine days.”
“You came back to Ellbeck how long ago now?”
There was an instant change in the man. He got down from his perch and began moving to the direction of the pile of logs, obviously about to stack them. “Two years ago.”
“And before that, you were working down south, is that right?”
“Yes, I was working down South. Not that I can see it has anything at all to do with what you say happened to Mrs. Butler, or anything to do with you for that matter.”
“We are investigating a …”
”Yes, yes,” Braithwaite interrupted. “You’re investigating a serious matter and we all have a duty to cooperate with you while you’re doing it? That it, is it, lad? You mightn’t think it, to look at me, but I’ve been to the pictures, too, in my time. I know the spiel.”
“So, you won’t mind telling me where you worked then? Down South?”
Braithwaite straightened himself up and came up close to Brown. “Well, you’re wrong there. I do mind. You come back here and tell me exactly why my whereabouts more than two years ago has anything to do with Mrs. Butler, and I might consider answering you. Or better still, tell the top man to come himself, not send the boy. Eh? Do you hear me Sergeant Brown?”
“I’ll report back to Inspector Greene on what you’ve said, then. I reckon I may as well leave you to it. Good day to you.” Brown was seething as he walked back down the lane. He kept having imaginary conversations with Braithwaite, in his mind. Then, as he neared the church, it came to him.
He hadn’t lost the round, not really. Braithwaite was the one who was worried. Actually, it wouldn’t surprise him one bit, if he took to his heels and left Ellbeck. He quickened his pace back to the police house.
* * *
Julia Etherington listened to the thump, thump of her heart as she went through Giles’s wardrobe. Whatever had got into her? If anyone had told her, even last week that she would stoop so low as to search her husbands’ pockets, she would have laughed at them.
But, she’d woken in the middle of the night with the absolute conviction there must be another woman. In fact, she couldn’t believe it had taken her so long to cotton on. The harshness of the morning light was determinedly forcing its way through a gap in the curtains. She had been looking in the dark, for what was there in the light.
How stupid she’d been, thinking about a return of shell shock, ill health, business worries. When all the time, the most obvious reason for his distance, and coldness, and sarcasm, was the oldest one in the book. An affair. How crass and unfair. He was the one doing wrong. She was the one who was being made to feel miserable and guilty. She would confront him, when he got back from his so-called trip to London.
But, as she sat downstairs in the cold breakfast room, drinking a strong cup of tea, she realised this would not do for her. She couldn’t wait. Now the possibility had got into her, like a bacteria in the bloodstream, she needed to take drastic action. She had to bring things to a head. She had to know.
For a long time, it seemed like she was going to find nothing. Then, like watching a play in the theatre, she saw herself take a blue envelope from the inside pocket of his second best lounge suit. The words were casual rather than passionate. That assumption of her, Amanda’s place in Giles’s heart made Julia clench her eyes shut, and grip the letter until it began to tear.
“See you, next week, usual place. Missing you a lot. Hope you’ll be able to get away without any trouble. I’m going to see my friend, Chloe, (again!).”
Something made Julia re-read the last sentence. Slowly, the significance of it dawned on her. The woman must be married as well. Otherwise, why would she need to be making excuses to see him? Maybe not a serious threat, just a bit of so-called fun? But then the other words of the letter were cosy, familiar, asking if his cold was better, warning him not to work too hard. Like a wife, really.
She heard a noise. A housemaid getting up, probably. Soon the day would begin, and she didn’t know how she was going to cope with it. She had to have a little time on her own before she could pretend everything was normal, so she quickly bathed and dressed in her warm skirt, automatically looking for a jumper that matched.
Then she stopped herself. Anything would do. Who cared what she looked like anyway? Not her husband. Desolation entered her heart. Was that it then? Would anybody ever care what she looked like, ever again?
Stop being melodramatic.
The grass on either side of the terrace was sprinkled with glittering frost, and the air was fresh and clean. The first frost of the autumn. Had Paddy taken in the more delicate plants? Probably. He was an accurate weather forecaster.
She touched the urn on the right side of the path, relishing the cold roughness of the stone, scraping the knuckles of her hand, along the surface until it stung. She had an urge to sit on the steps, and just stop. Be still and stay her thoughts. The house, the gardens, probably even these urns had been here before she was born, and would be here after she was gone.
And that won’t be very long. Anger overwhelmed her, making her abandon trying to sit still on the steps. She walked fast down the drive, and over the stile, into the meadow. She needed to exercise, exhaust herself, until she couldn’t move or think anymore. But images forced themselves into her mind’s eye, and into her heart. It was hateful, but she couldn’t seem to control them.
This can’t be happening. She couldn’t give in without a fight. She needed to see him, this minute, ask him if he’s having a nervous breakdown or something. How could he jeopardise everything he’s got here? But the hardest thing of all was memory. One in particular, kept intruding, causing a heavy pain in her chest; a pain that made her clutch herself, wrapping her arms around her body.
It was shortly after the crazy celebration of the Armistice, which had felt wrong somehow, to her and Edie. Giles had begged her to try to wrangle some time off from the hospital, and come back here to the country with him, to stay with his parents. “Won’t they want you to themselves?” she’d asked.
“After the last few years, it’s about what I want, Jules, and what l want is to spend time with you in the country, away from the noise. Please?”
How could she refuse? She would move hell and high water to get leave from the hospital.
He periodically complained of noise, traffic, trains. Even raucous laughter in the street made him wince as though in pain.
He’d met her at t
he little train station, taken her home to warm fires, and so much love she’d felt a strong conviction she would never be lonely again. They had got through the last few years of the war somehow, her and Giles. In the midst of the guilt and sorrow for those who hadn’t survived, they walked in this very meadow. It had been mown for the late hay, and the stubble made walking difficult. He had led her to the edge and put his arms around her, against the great oak tree, there in the far corner.
Now, in this similar, but so different place, she could remember the earth and smoke smell of autumn, the crunch of leaves, the feel and whisper of the wind, and Giles holding her.
We survived,” he said. “Promise you’ll never leave me. I want to put the last few years behind us. Start again. We’re still young. We’ll have children, build a good life for ourselves out of the wreckage.”
She’d nodded her head and leaned against him. She never wanted to move from the spot, the day. It had felt like the most significant moment of her life.
And was all a big lie. How could he have changed from that man, whom she would have trusted with her life, had trusted with her heart, into just another cheating man? Reduced to sneaking around with his mistress behind his wife’s back.
This was no good. She would have to go back to the house, stop worrying at the questions without answers. Walking slowly now, not looking back at the oak tree, she made her way back to the terrace.
Chapter 16
“What are your strongest memories of your childhood?”
Edith felt awkward, far too self-conscious, too aware she was sitting here and the man sitting at an angle to her was making a conscious effort to emulate techniques he had learned about—that she was in fact a bit of a guinea pig.
“I remember feeling very safe and secure, as a small child. We had a nursery and a nurse and mother and father were kind and good, though daddy was always very busy and we weren’t supposed to disturb him.”
This was so stupid. What was he trying to uncover? Was he trying to prove Edith was in here because of some forgotten trauma buried deep?” Well, that was stupid. She was here because of what happened in the near past. That was what had caused her to have the breakdown. There-was no mystery to it.
“Look, Dr. Uxbridge. I honestly don’t see the point in talking about my childhood. It was ordinary, privileged, I suppose. My brother and I were brought up in a happy home. Like a lot of other people, our lives and what we imagined would be our futures were turned upside down by the war. That’s where my problems lie—I’m sure of that.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Edith, but bear with me please. What happens to us as children, good or bad, shapes the rest of our lives. You say both you and your brother had a happy childhood?”
Edith shifted uneasily in her chair. “As young children, yes. Maybe not quite so much as we began to grow up. Then there were differences.”
“With your parents?”
“With my father. My mother was a quiet woman—anything for a quiet life, you might say. My brother had always wanted to be a doctor—he’d been away to school, studied the sciences, done well. And then, suddenly he didn’t want to do any of it.
There were a lot of rows. He left home for a while. I was sixteen. It was awful. My mother was distraught. My father went about with a black look on his face. Then something happened. I’m not sure what exactly. But someone, some friend of my parents spotted him.
He’d managed to get to London and he was working in a kitchen somewhere in Ealing. There was to-ing and fro-ing to London.” Edith stood up, went to the window, and returned to her seat. Her body was beginning to ache and she recognised the tension in her muscles.
“He came back after about a month. Things settled down again. He went to university, qualified with no problems as a doctor. Everything went back to normal. I think something did happen again when he qualified, a disagreement about Archie coming back to take over dad’s practice. But, Archie managed to win this one, persuading dad that he needed hospital experience. Then there was the war, which changed everything. After the war, Archie needed no persuading—he came back to Yorkshire, by which time my father was ready to retire.”
“So, your brother had his moment of rebellion. What about you?”
This surprised her. In spite of herself she’d become absorbed in telling Archie’s story. She still couldn’t understand where this was leading. But, maybe there was a point to it all and she should go with it. “There was no need to argue with me, was there? There were no expectations. I was to stay at home, help in the practice, and in due course, get married.”
In an irritating way, he sat there and said nothing. “But, life had other things in store,” she said.
* * *
She stopped fighting against it all eventually and in giving up the battle, something released inside herself. She no longer noticed the grimness of the room, the tin plates, the mocking warders.
She imagined instead that she was a thrush soaring high over the lush green countryside, swooping and flying, singing for joy. She entered valleys of corn, flew close down over somnolent grazing cows, perched on lush, full-leaved oak trees, and sang for the joy and beauty of it all. She almost felt happy.
Somehow, she’d touched bottom and soon, when she was ready to leave her dream world and the beautiful images in her mind she would, like the thrush, soar again, higher and higher. She almost had to close her eyes against the true searing blue of the sky.
* * *
“What do you mean, going, Josh? Where on earth are you going?”
“Don’t mither me with questions, woman. I have to go, a bit of business. Get out of my way and let me get myself ready.”
Cathy’s heart was pounding. Her parents’ voices were clear, even though they were upstairs. Their bedroom door must be open and their words were audible downstairs.
Her mother sounded on the verge of hysteria as she said, “What do you mean a bit of business? It’s seven o’clock in the evening. What about your job? What am I supposed to say if Mr. Arbuthnot, or that estate manager comes looking for you?”
Oh, let him go. A brief vision of life as it used to be—and could be again, flashed before her eyes.
“Say nothing. You don’t know where I am. I was called away to do a job and that’s all you know. Now, for crying out loud, woman, get out of my road and let me get the rest of my things packed.”
Cathy grabbed the torch and ran outside to the shed. She reckoned she had at least a few minutes while they were still upstairs.
The envelope was gone from the pile of sacking.
Her mother’s face was white, and her hands were clenched in front of her as she waited now at the foot of the stairs. Cathy didn’t speak. Her mother looked still and stiff as a statue. Josh Braithwaite lugged his old army case down the stairs. Cathy could visualise it neatly packed, trousers and shirts folded perfectly.
“Are you going to the station?” Her mother’s voice sounded lifeless now. She’d given up questioning and pleading—had accepted that he was going, as she had to accept everything else—his return, for instance.
“Well, as I don’t own a motor car, yes, I’ll be getting the train.”
“But, it’s quite a step to the station, Joshua. How’re you getting there?”
Her father was checking his pockets, checking that he had a wallet, fags—and brown envelope stuffed full of big five-pound notes, too?
“Shanks’ pony. ‘Ow do you think?”
“Will you write?”
Josh shrugged. “If I ‘ave the time. Oh, I get you now. Of course. Will I send money, d’ya mean? Well, we’ll have to see won’t we? I’ll have to see what pans out, with work and all.”
You bastard. It was the worst word she knew. Nasty to the end.
“Won’t you say goodbye to our John, before you go?”
“Oh, for God’s sake woman. Will you stop fussing? The less the kid knows, the better. He’s young, Cathy ‘ere as enough sense to keep ‘er trap shut
, but I don’t want the lad up and down, telling my business. “Be a good girl, Cathy.” He nodded at his wife and went through the door. His shoulders looked freer as if a heavy burden had been lifted.
Cathy and her mother stood for a moment, in a heavy silence. I’ll put the kettle on, mam,” she said.
* * *
This weekend was better from the start. Surely, it wasn’t only that conversation she’d had with Dr. Uxbridge. But, she felt lighter. The tension, the anxious feelings, the trouble sleeping all seemed to have departed. But, she’d had false dawns before. She must not get carried away.
“Esther’s away this weekend,” her aunt told her as soon as they got into the Morris Traveller. Actually, that was probably the start of the relaxation for Edith.
“How do you find her, Auntie? I shouldn’t say so, I suppose, but she’s not the easiest of people to have in the house, is she?”
“She’s not too bad. I must admit, I have questioned whether I made the right decision employing her at all, but we are getting used to each other. As much as anything, she is quiet and reserved and maybe a bit more religious than normal. Anyway, if Elizabeth Butler had her in her house all that time, she must have been all right. Her stepdaughter, Elizabeth’s I mean, Caroline, visited her on Monday. Now, she’s a strange girl.”
Edith laughed. “The pair of them are. She’s a chinless wonder too. She’s an actress, it seems, or aspires to be one. I’m not sure. A different world to the one I’m used to.”
* * *
Her father had been gone a whole night and day—twenty-four hours. John had said little when his mother said dad had gone back down south. Now that he hadn’t got the job at Mrs. Butler’s times weren’t too good for the sort of odd jobs and maintenance that he usually did, so Hannah’s explanation was calm, believable. Both wages and job prospects were better around the London area.
Hannah’s ideas of the London area were vague, and Cathy knew through her reading that London wasn’t the same as Harrogate or even Leeds. You had to travel a long way out of the city before you found something like a farm, for instance.
Treated as Murder Page 14
