‘Hardly. She was a Cavendish and inordinately proud of the fact. They were bigwigs round here for years. Her father, Sir William Cavendish, bought his knighthood by doing a stint as the local MP. She was already socially acceptable, as you put it, and didn’t need to pander to anyone.’ He frowned in recollection. ‘No, what made her extraordinary, despite all the trappings of class and respectability which she played up to and tossed about in public to keep the proles in their place, was that privately she seethed with contradictions. Perhaps her uncle’s sexual abuse had something to do with it, but I think the truth is she was born into the wrong generation and lived the wrong life. She had the intellectual capacity to do anything she wanted, but her social conditioning was such that she allowed herself to be confined in the one role she wasn’t suited for, namely marriage and motherhood. It’s tragic really. She spent most of her life at war with herself and crippled her daughter and granddaughter in the process. She couldn’t bear to see their rebellions succeed where hers hadn’t.’
‘Did she tell you all this?’
‘Not in so many words. I gleaned it from things she said and then put it into the portrait. But it’s all true. She wanted a complete explanation of that painting, down to the last colour nuance and the last brush stroke, so’ – he shrugged – ‘I gave her one, much along the lines of what I’ve just told you, and at the end she said there was only one thing wrong, and it was wrong because it was missing. But she wouldn’t tell me what it was.’ He paused in reflection. ‘Presumably it had something to do with her uncle’s abuse of her. I didn’t know about that. I only knew of her father’s abuse with the scold’s bridle.’
But Cooper was more interested in something he had said before. ‘You can’t call Mrs Lascelles’s rebellion a success. She lumbered herself with a worthless heroin addict who then died and left her penniless.’ His gaze lingered on the portrait.
Jack’s dark face split into another grin. ‘You’ve led a very sheltered life if you think rebellion is about achieving happiness. It’s about anger and resistance and inflicting maximum damage on a hated authority.’ He lifted a sardonic eyebrow. ‘On that basis, I’d say Joanna scored a spectacular success. If you’re calling her husband worthless now, what on earth do you imagine Mathilda’s peers said about him at the time? Don’t forget she was a very proud woman.’
Cooper drew heavily on his cigarette and looked up towards the house. ‘Your wife’s just been to see Mrs Lascelles. Did you know?’
Jack shook his head.
‘I met her as she was leaving. She told me she’s convinced Mrs Lascelles didn’t kill her mother. Would you agree with that?’
‘Probably.’
‘Yet you just told me that Mrs Lascelles’s rebellion was to inflict maximum damage on the object of her hatred. Isn’t death the ultimate damage?’
‘I was talking about twenty-odd years ago. You’re talking about now. Rebellion belongs to the young, Sergeant, not to the middle-aged. It’s the middle-aged who’re rebelled against because they’re the ones who compromise their principles.’
‘So how is Ruth rebelling?’
Jack studied him lazily from beneath his hooded eyelids. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’
‘Because she’s not here,’ said Cooper reasonably, ‘and you are.’
‘Ask her mother then. You’re being paid to meddle,’ he cocked his irritating eyebrow again, ‘and I’m not.’
Cooper beamed at him. ‘I like you, Mr Blakeney, though God alone knows why. I like your wife, too, if it’s of any interest. You’re straightforward types who look me in the eye when you talk to me and, believe it or not, that warms my heart because I’m trying to do a job that the people have asked me to do but for which, most of the time, I get called a pig. Now, for all I know, one or other, or both of you together, killed that poor old woman up there, and if I have to arrest you I’ll do it, and I shan’t let my liking get in the way because I’m an old-fashioned sod who believes that society only works if it’s bolstered by rules and regulations which give more freedom than they take away. By the same token, I don’t like Mrs Lascelles or her daughter, and if I was the sort to arrest people I didn’t like, I’d have banged them up a couple of weeks ago. They’re equally malicious. The one directs her malice against your wife, the other directs hers against her mother, but neither of them has said anything worth listening to. Their accusations are vague and without substance. Ruth says her mother’s a whore without principles, and Mrs Lascelles says your wife’s a murderess but when I ask them to prove it, they can’t.’ He tossed his dog-end on to the grass. ‘The odd thing is that you and Dr Blakeney, between you, appear to know more about these two women and their relationship with Mrs Gillespie than they do themselves, but out of some kind of misguided altruism you don’t want to talk about it. Perhaps it’s not politically correct amongst gilded intellectuals to dabble their fingers in the seamy side of life, but make no mistake, without something more to go on, Mrs Gillespie’s death will remain an unsolved mystery and the only person who will suffer will be Dr Blakeney because she is the only person who had a known motive. If she is innocent of the murder of her patient, her innocence can only be proved if someone else is charged. Now, tell me honestly, do you think so little of your wife that you’d let her reputation be trampled in the mud for the sake of not wanting to assist the police?’
‘My God!’ said Jack with genuine enthusiasm. ‘You’re going to have to let me do this portrait of you. Two thousand. Is that what we agreed?’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ said the policeman patiently.
Jack reached for his sketchpad and flicked through to a clean page. ‘Just stand there for a moment,’ he murmured, taking a piece of charcoal and making swift lines on the paper. ‘That was some speech. Is your wife as decent and honourable as you are?’
‘You’re taking the mickey.’
‘Actually, I’m not.’ Jack squinted at him briefly before returning to his drawing. ‘I happen to think the relationship between the police and society is drifting out of balance. The police have forgotten that they are there only by invitation; while society has forgotten that, because it chooses the laws which regulate it, it has a responsibility to uphold them. The relationship should be a mutually supportive one; instead, it is mutually suspicious and mutually antagonistic.’ He threw Cooper a disarmingly sweet smile. ‘I am thoroughly enchanted to meet a policeman who seems to share my point of view. And, no, of course I don’t think so little of Sarah that I’d allow her reputation to suffer. Is that really likely?’
‘You’ve not been out and about much since you moved in here.’
‘I never do when I’m working.’
‘Then perhaps it’s time you left. There’s a kangaroo court operating in Fontwell and your wife is their favourite target. She’s the newcomer, after all, and you’ve done her no favours by shacking up with the opposition. She’s lost a goodly number of patients already.’
Jack held the sketchpad at arm’s length to look at it. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m going to enjoy doing you.’ He started to pack his hold-all. ‘It’s too damn cold here anyway, and I’ve got enough on Joanna to finish her at home. Will Sarah have me back?’
‘I suggest you ask her. I’m not paid to meddle in domestic disputes.’
Jack tipped a finger in acknowledgement. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘the only thing I know about Ruth is what Mathilda told me. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, so you’ll have to check that for yourself. Mathilda kept a float of fifty pounds locked in a cash-box in her bedside table and opened it up one day because she wanted me to go to the shop and buy some groceries for her. It was empty. I said, perhaps she’d already spent the money and forgotten. She said, no, it’s what came of having a thief for a granddaughter.’ He shrugged. ‘For all I know she may have been excusing her own memory lapse by slandering Ruth, but she didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask. More than that I can’t tell you.’
‘What a disappointing family,�
�� said the Sergeant. ‘No wonder she chose to leave her money elsewhere.’
‘That’s where we part company,’ said Jack, standing up and stretching towards the ceiling. ‘They are Mathilda’s creations. She had no business passing the buck to Sarah.’
I had an appalling shock today. I walked into the surgery, completely unprepared, and found Jane Marriott behind the counter. Why did nobody tell me they were back? Forewarned would have meant forearmed. Jane, of course, knowing our paths must cross, was as cool as ever. ‘Good morning, Mathilda,’ she said. ‘You’re looking well.’ I couldn’t speak. It was left to Doctor Dolittle, asinine man, to bray the good news that Jane and Paul have decided to move back to Rossett House following the death of their tenant. I gather Paul is an invalid – chronic emphysema – and will benefit from the peace and quiet of Fontwell after the rigours of Southampton. But what am I to do about Jane? Will she talk? Worse, will she betray me?
‘Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, that sees into the bottom of my grief?’
I would feel less desperate if Ruth had not gone back to school. The house is empty without her. There are too many ghosts here and most of them unlaid. Gerald and my father haunt me mercilessly. There are times, not many, when I regret their deaths. But I have high hopes of Ruth. She is bright for her age. Something good will come of the Cavendishes, I’m sure of it. If not, everything I have done is wasted.
‘Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares! Mathilda Gillespie is saying her prayers.’ I have such terrible headaches these days. Perhaps it was never Joanna who was mad, but only I . . .
Ten
RUTH, SUMMONED OUT of a chemistry lesson, sidled into the room set aside for Sergeant Cooper by her housemistress and stood with her back to the door. ‘Why did you have to come back?’ she asked him. ‘It’s embarrassing. I’ve told you everything I know.’ She was dressed in mufti and, with her hair swept back into a tight bun, she looked more than her seventeen years.
Cooper could appreciate her embarrassment. Any school was a goldfish bowl but a boarding school peculiarly so. ‘Police investigations are rarely tidy things,’ he said apologetically. ‘Too many loose ends for tidiness.’ He gestured towards a chair. ‘Sit down, Miss Lascelles.’
With a bad grace, she did so, and he caught a brief glimpse of the gawky adolescent beneath the pseudo-sophistication of the outer shell. He lowered his stocky body on to the chair in front of her and studied her gravely but not unkindly.
‘Two days ago we received a letter about you,’ he said. ‘It was anonymous. It claimed you were in Cedar House the day your grandmother died and that you stole some earrings. Are either of those facts true, Miss Lascelles?’
Her eyes widened but she didn’t say anything.
‘Since which time,’ he went on gently, ‘I have been told on good authority that your grandmother knew you were a thief. She accused you of stealing money from her. Is that also true?’
The colour drained from her face. ‘I want a solicitor.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s my right.’
He stood up with a nod. ‘Very well. Do you have a solicitor of your own? If you do, you may give your housemistress the number and ask her to telephone him. If not, I’m sure she will be happy to call the one the school uses. Presumably they will charge it to the fees.’ He walked to the door. ‘She may even offer to sit in herself to safeguard your interests. I have no objection to either course.’
‘No,’ she said sharply, ‘I want the duty solicitor.’
‘Which duty solicitor?’ He found her transparency oddly pathetic.
‘The one the police provide.’
He considered this during a prolonged and thoughtful silence. ‘Would you be referring to duty solicitors at police stations who act on behalf of persons who have no legal representation of their own?’
She nodded.
He sounded genuinely sympathetic. ‘With the best will in the world, Miss Lascelles, that is out of the question. These are harsh recessionary times, and you’re a privileged young woman, surrounded by people only too willing to watch out for your rights. We’ll ask your housemistress to contact a lawyer. She won’t hesitate, I’m sure. Apart from anything else, she will want to keep the unpleasantness under wraps so to speak. After all, she does have the school’s reputation to think of.’
‘Bastard!’ she snapped. ‘I just won’t answer your questions then.’
He manufactured a look of surprise. ‘Do I gather you don’t want a solicitor after all?’
‘No. Yes.’ She hugged herself. ‘But I’m not saying anything.’
Cooper returned to his seat. ‘That’s your privilege. But if I don’t get any answers from you, then I shall have to ask my questions elsewhere. In my experience, thieves do not confine themselves to stealing from just one person. I wonder what will happen if I call the rest of your house together and ask them en masse if any of their possessions have gone missing in the last year or so. The inference, surely, will be obvious because they know my only connection with the school is you.’
‘That’s blackmail.’
‘Standard police procedure, Miss Lascelles. If a copper can’t get his information one way, then he’s duty-bound to try another.’
She scowled ferociously. ‘I didn’t kill her.’
‘Have I said you did?’
She couldn’t resist answering, it seemed. ‘It’s what you’re thinking. If I was there I must have killed her.’
‘She probably died during the early half of the night, between nine o’clock and midnight, say. Were you there then?’
She looked relieved. ‘No. I left at five. I had to be back in time for a physics lecture. It’s one of my A level subjects and I gave the vote of thanks at the end.’
He took out his pad. ‘What time did the lecture start?’
‘Seven thirty.’
‘And you were there for the start?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you manage to do that? You clearly didn’t walk thirty miles in two and a half hours.’
‘I borrowed a bicycle.’
He looked deeply sceptical. ‘What time did you arrive at your grandmother’s, Miss Lascelles?’
‘I don’t know. About three thirty, I suppose.’
‘And what time did you leave the school?’
‘After lunch.’
‘I see,’ he said ponderously, ‘so you rode thirty miles in one direction in two hours, rested for an hour and a half with your grandmother and then rode thirty miles back again. You must be a very fit young woman. May I have the name of the person whose bicycle you borrowed?’ He licked the point of his pencil and held it poised above the page.
‘I don’t know whose it was. I borrowed it without asking.’
He made a note. ‘Shall we call a spade a spade and be done with the pretence? You mean you stole it. Like the earrings and the fifty pounds.’
‘I put it back. That’s not stealing.’
‘Back where?’
‘In the bike shed.’
‘Good, then you’ll be able to identify it for me.’
‘I’m not sure. I just took the best one I could find. What difference does it make which bicycle it was?’
‘Because you’re going to hop on board again and I’m going to follow closely behind you all the way to Fontwell.’ He looked amused. ‘You see, I don’t believe you’re capable of riding thirty miles in two hours, Miss Lascelles, but I’m quite happy for you to prove me wrong. Then you can have an hour and a half’s rest before you ride back again.’
‘You can’t do that. That’s just fucking – ’ she cast about for a word ‘ – harassment.’
‘Of course I can do it. It’s called a reconstruction. You’ve just put yourself at the scene of a crime on the day the crime was committed, you’re a member of the victim’s family with easy access to her house and you thought you were going to inherit money from her. All of which puts you high on the list of probable suspects. Either you prove to m
y satisfaction that you did go by bicycle, or you tell me now how you really got there. Someone drove you, didn’t they?’
She sat in a sullen silence, scraping her toe back and forth across the carpet. ‘I hitched,’ she said suddenly. ‘I didn’t want to tell you because the school would throw a fit if they knew.’
‘Was your grandmother alive when you left Cedar House at five o’clock?’
She looked put out by the sudden switch of direction. ‘She must have been, mustn’t she, as I didn’t kill her.’
‘So you spoke to her?’
Ruth eyed him warily. ‘Yes,’ she muttered. ‘I left my key at school and had to ring the doorbell.’
‘Then she’ll have asked you how you got there. If you had to hitch, she won’t have been expecting you.’
‘I said I had a lift from a friend.’
‘But that wasn’t true, was it, and, as you knew you were going to have to hitch back to school again on a dark November evening, why didn’t you ask your grandmother to drive you? She had a car and, according to you, she was fond of you. She’d have done it without a murmur, wouldn’t she? Why would you do something so dangerous as hitching in the dark?’
‘I didn’t think about it.’
He sighed. ‘Where did you hitch from, Miss Lascelles? Fontwell itself, or did you walk the three miles along Gazing Lane to the main road? If it was Fontwell, then we’ll be able to find the person who picked you up.’
‘I walked along Gazing Lane,’ she said obligingly.
‘And what sort of shoes were you wearing?’
‘Trainers.’
‘Then they’ll have mud from the lane squeezed into every seam and crevice. It was raining most of that afternoon. The boys at forensic will have a field day. Your shoes will vindicate you if you’re telling the truth. And if you’re not . . .’ he smiled grimly, ‘I will make your life a misery, Miss Lascelles. I will interview every girl in the school, if necessary, to ask them who you consort with, who’s had to cover for you when you’ve gone AWOL, what you steal and why you’re stealing it. And if at the end of it you have an ounce of credibility left, then I’ll start all over again. Is that clear? Now, who drove you to your grandmother’s?’
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