The Scold's Bridle

by Minette Walters

  Charlie eyed him sympathetically. ‘Not just a busy night, obviously, but an exhausting one, too.’

  ‘Forget in vino veritas,’ said Cooper acidly. ‘In insomnio veritas is more like it. I wake up in the early hours of the morning sometimes and see the world as it really is. A bear garden, with religious leaders twisting souls on one side, power-corrupt politicians twisting minds on the other side, and the illiterate, intolerant masses in the middle baying for blood because they’re too uneducated to do anything else.’

  ‘Stop the world I want to get off, eh?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘Are there no redeeming features, Tommy?’

  Cooper chuckled. ‘Sure, as long as no one reminds me of Hughes.’ He passed the first fax across the desk-top. ‘Gillespie never left the sitting-room, apparently, and the key’s a dead-end.’

  Jones looked disappointed. ‘We need something concrete, old son, and quickly. I’m being pushed to drop this one and concentrate on something that will get a result. The consensus view is that, even if we do manage to prove it was murder, we’re going to have the devil’s own job bringing a prosecution.’

  ‘I wonder where I’ve heard that before,’ said Cooper sourly. ‘If things go on like this, we might as well pack it in and let the anarchists have a go.’

  ‘What about the diaries? Any progress there?’

  ‘Not really. The search was a wash-out, but then I knew it would be. I went through every book in the library the first time we searched Cedar House.’ He frowned. ‘I had a word with Jack and Ruth last night, but they’re claiming ignorance as well, although Jack does remember Mrs Gillespie being in a paddy one day because she said her books were being disturbed.’ He fingered his lip. ‘I know it’s hypothetical but, let’s say the diaries did exist and that someone was looking for them, then that might at least explain why the books were disturbed.’

  Charlie snorted. ‘Hellishly hypothetical,’ he agreed, ‘and quite unprovable.’

  ‘Yes, but if whoever was looking for them found them, then it might explain why they’ve been removed.’ He took pity on Charlie’s baffled expression. ‘Because,’ he said patiently, ‘they could tell us who murdered her and why.’

  Charlie frowned. ‘You’re clutching at straws. First, convince me they existed.’

  ‘Why would James Gillespie lie?’

  ‘Because he’s a drunk,’ said Charlie. ‘You don’t need any better reason than that.’

  ‘Then why was Mathilda in a paddy because her books were being disturbed? Explain that, or are you suggesting Jack’s lying, too?’

  Charlie registered this second use of ‘Jack’ with an inward sigh. When would the silly fellow learn that it was his inability to keep his distance that scuppered his chances every time? Unprofessional. Cannot remain objective, was what Jones’s predecessor had written on Cooper’s last assessment. ‘She must have guessed who it was,’ he said. ‘It’s a narrow field in all conscience. Why didn’t she tackle them about it?’

  ‘Perhaps she did. Perhaps that’s why she was murdered.’ Cooper tapped the fax with his forefinger. ‘The key complicates it, though. If whoever it was knew about that, then they could have let themselves in without her knowing. The field becomes much wider then.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve considered that Gillespie’s our man, and only mentioned the diaries to you because he thought everyone else would have known about them.’

  ‘Yes. But why would he take them away and deny all knowledge if he’s expecting them to prove she diddled him over the clocks?’

  ‘Double bluff. He read them, discovered they proved the exact opposite, so destroyed them in order to keep his claim alive, then topped her to give himself a free run with Mrs Lascelles who he thought was going to inherit.’

  Cooper shook his head. ‘It’s a possibility, I suppose, but it doesn’t feel right. If he stole them himself because he knew they’d destroy his chances of any money, how could he be sure no one else had read them first? It’s too iffy, Charlie.’

  ‘It’s all too iffy, frankly,’ said the Inspector dryly. ‘If the diaries existed – if the searcher knew they existed – if there was something incriminating in them – if he or she knew about the key . . .’ He fell silent, dunking his biscuit again. ‘There are two things I don’t understand. Why did Mrs Gillespie leave all her money to Dr Blakeney and why did her murderer put the scold’s bridle on her head and deck it out with nettles and daisies? If I knew the answers to those two questions, I could probably tell you who killed her. Otherwise I’m inclined to make do with a verdict of suicide.’

  ‘I think I know why she left the money to Dr Blakeney.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I reckon it was a Pontius Pilate exercise. She’d done a lousy job herself bringing up her daughter and granddaughter, knew they’d destroy themselves with jealous infighting if she left the money to them, so passed the buck to the only person she’d ever got on with and respected. Namely Dr Blakeney. I think she hoped the doctor would succeed where she hadn’t.’

  ‘Sentimental twaddle,’ said the Inspector amiably. ‘And all because you’re reasoning backwards, from the effect you see to the cause you imagine a normal person would wish to achieve. Try reasoning forwards. She was a bloody-minded, mean and vicious old woman, who not only acquired a fortune through blackmail and creative insurance scams but also loathed and despised everyone around her for most of her life. Why, having sown nothing but discord for sixty years, did she suddenly endow an easy-going, pleasant stranger with a fortune? Not for the sake of harmony, that’s for sure.’ The Inspector’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘I can go along with the scold’s bridle as a sort of symbolic drawing attention to the final curbing of a peculiarly unpleasant tongue, but I cannot go along with the idea that the leopard suddenly changed its spots when it came to making the will.’

  ‘You can’t ignore the Blakeneys’ view of her character, Charlie. According to them, she was a much pleasanter person than anyone else credited her with being. My guess is they gave her room to breathe, didn’t demand anything and the real Mathilda blossomed.’ He paused for a moment and took stock. ‘Think about this. We’ve been dwelling on the symbolism of the scold’s bridle, largely because of Ophelia’s “nettles, daisies and long purples”, but look at it in practical terms instead. They were used to keep women quiet, and perhaps the reason she was wearing it was as simple as that. Her murderer didn’t want her alerting the next-door neighbours by screaming her head off, so shoved that contraption on her head and then adorned it with flowers to give it a mystical – but misleading – significance.’

  Jones steepled his fingers under his chin. ‘But she must have taken the barbiturates first or she’d have struggled when the bridle was put on and there’d have been scratches on her face. If she was so doped up that she didn’t bother to fight it, then why put it on at all?’

  ‘Do what you told me to do and reason forwards. You want to kill a woman by making it look like suicide, but the neighbours are too close for comfort so you need a method of keeping her quiet in case the barbiturates aren’t as effective as you hope. A belt and braces job in other words. You can’t use tape or Elastoplast because it’ll leave a mark on the skin, and you’re canny enough not to use a gag in case bits of fabric are found in the mouth during the post mortem, so you pitch on something you can leave in place which has its own significance to the victim, and you trust to luck that the police will put it down as a macabre example of self-condemnation. Then you carry her to the bath, clasp your hands over hers while you slit each wrist, drop the knife to the floor and leave her to die, knowing that even if she does struggle back to consciousness, the bridle will prevent her calling for help.’

  Jones nodded. ‘It sounds feasible, but why bother with the bath and the Stanley knife at all? Why not simply overdose her on sleeping pills and kill her that way?’

  ‘Because there weren’t enough, presumably, and even if there were, they’re v
ery unreliable. Supposing Ruth had come back the next morning and found the old lady still alive. It might have been possible to pump her out and revive her. Plus, of course, Ophelia drowned herself which may have inspired the idea.’ He smiled self-consciously. ‘I’ve read the play to see if there are any clues in it and a blood-thirsty piece it is, too. There’s no one left standing by the end.’

  ‘Did you find any clues?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. It was written four hundred years ago.’ Jones tapped his pencil against his teeth. ‘I can’t see that any of this makes much difference, frankly. You’re still describing someone who knew her intimately, which is what we’ve believed from the start. The only new pieces of information are the discovery of the key and the absence of the diaries. I admit the key may mean that her murderer came in uninvited, but it still had to be someone very close to her or she’d have screamed her head off. And there’s so much intimate detail involved – the Stanley knife, the sleeping pills, her yen for Shakespeare, the scold’s bridle. Whoever it was probably even knew there were nettles and daisies in her garden and where to find them in the dark. And someone that close means the Blakeneys, the Lascelles women or Mr and Mrs Spede.’

  Cooper took the second fax from his notebook and spread it on the desk. ‘According to the fingerprint tests we made, bearing in mind I told the lab to get a move on so these results will have to be double-checked for accuracy, they’ve made tentative identifications on four of the prints in that house, excluding Mrs Gillespie herself, Mrs Spede, the Blakeneys, Mrs and Miss Lascelles and now James Gillespie. The four are . . .’ he ran his finger slowly down the page, ‘the Reverend Matthews, matched in ten points with print located on hall mirror; Mrs Orloff, matched in sixteen points with print located on kitchen worktop and in fourteen points with print found on kitchen door; Mrs Spencer, matched in twelve points with print on hall door; and, lastly, Mrs Jane Marriott, matched in eighteen points with two prints on desk in library and one on stair newel post.’ He looked up. ‘Mrs Orloff is her neighbour. Mrs Spencer runs the local shop and Mrs Marriott is the receptionist at the Fontwell surgery. What’s interesting is that the Reverend Matthews, Mrs Orloff and Mrs Spencer all admitted quite happily that they had been inside the house in the week before Mrs Gillespie died. Mrs Marriott didn’t. According to Jenkins who interviewed her when he was going door to door, she said she hadn’t been near Cedar House for years.’

  With careless disregard for the restrictions placed on his movements by the Bournemouth police, Jack waited until Sarah had left for work then set off for Fontwell on the old bicycle that Geoffrey Freeling’s next-of-kin had abandoned in the garage. His car was in the pound at Freemont Road and looked like remaining there indefinitely until a decision was reached on whether or not to prosecute him, but he was deeply suspicious about their motives for holding it. They had claimed it was material evidence, but he saw Keith’s devious hand at work behind the Inspector. It’s unreasonable to expect Dr Blakeney to guard her husband for you, so deprive Jack of his wheels, and he may stay put. For once he was grateful to Smollett’s lingering partiality for his wife.

  Ruth was dead to the world upstairs, worn out by the mental and physical stress that had taken its toll of her all too meagre reserves the previous night, but he left a note on the kitchen table in case she woke up and panicked to find him gone: ‘You’re quite safe with Hughes in the nick,’ it read, ‘but don’t answer the door to anyone, just in case. Back soon, love Jack.’

  ‘Mrs Marriott?’ Cooper leant on the receptionist’s counter in the empty surgery and held up his warrant card. ‘DS Cooper, Learmouth Police.’

  Jane smiled automatically. ‘How can I help you, Sergeant?’

  ‘I’d like a word or two in private, if that’s possible.’

  ‘It’s private enough here for the moment,’ she said. ‘The only thing likely to disturb us is the telephone. Would you care for a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Thank you. White, two sugars, please.’

  She busied herself with the kettle.

  ‘We’ve had some interesting results from our fingerprint tests,’ said Cooper to her back. ‘One way and another the evidence points to quite a few people visiting Mrs Gillespie before she died. You, for example.’

  Jane became very still suddenly. ‘I hoped you wouldn’t find out,’ she admitted after a moment, plucking invisible fluff from her jumper. ‘And then, of course, you invited us all to give examples of our fingerprints. It was very difficult to know what to do then. Should I confess that I’d told a lie the first time or sit it out in the hopes I hadn’t touched anything?’

  ‘Why didn’t you want us to know you’d been to Cedar House?’

  ‘Because you’d have asked me my reason for going.’

  He nodded. ‘Which was?’

  She turned back to the coffee cups and poured out the water. ‘It had nothing to do with Mathilda’s death, Sergeant. It was a very private matter.’

  ‘I’m afraid that really won’t do, Mrs Marriott.’

  She pushed a cup across the counter and placed the sugar bowl and a spoon beside it. ‘Will you arrest me if I refuse to tell you?’

  He chuckled good-humouredly. ‘Not immediately.’

  ‘When?’

  He sidestepped the question. ‘If I say to you that, as long as what you tell me really does have no bearing on Mrs Gillespie’s death, it will go no further than these four walls, will you trust me enough to keep my word?’ He held her gaze with his. ‘You’ve no idea of the sort of publicity you’ll face if I have to take you in for questioning. Once the press have their teeth into you, they don’t let go easily.’

  Jane’s plump homely face took on a very bleak expression. ‘How Mathilda would adore this if she were still alive,’ she said. ‘She loved making trouble.’

  ‘You knew her well then.’

  ‘Too well.’

  ‘And you didn’t like her?’

  ‘I couldn’t bear her. I tried to avoid her as far as I could but that wasn’t very easy once I started working here, what with phone calls demanding a doctor’s visit and requests for repeat prescriptions.’

  ‘Yet you went to see her?’

  ‘I had to. I saw James coming out of her house the day before she died.’ She held a hand to her bosom. ‘It was such a shock. I thought he was in Hong Kong.’ She fell silent.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Cooper prompted gently.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Jane with conviction. ‘You didn’t know Mathilda.’

  Jack was in a very bad mood by the time he reached Cedar House. He hadn’t ridden a bicycle in years, and four miles along rutted country lanes on something that should have been condemned to the scrap heap years ago had given him sore balls and the sort of trembling thighs that would have disgraced a nonagenarian. He abandoned the bicycle against a tree in the Cedar Housing Estate, vaulted the fence and ran lightly across the grass to the kitchen window. For reasons of his own, he had no intention of announcing his presence by approaching across the gravel or using the front doorbell.

  He tapped lightly but persistently on the window pane, and after a minute or two, Joanna appeared in the doorway that led from the kitchen into the hall. ‘What do you want?’

  He read her lips, rather than heard the words, and gestured towards the back door. ‘Let me in,’ he mouthed, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Jane’s eyes narrowed as she looked back down the corridors of time. ‘You see, you can’t assess Mathilda on what people tell you now. They’ve forgotten how beautiful she was as a young woman, how witty she was and how many men desired her. She was the most eligible girl around – her father was the MP, her uncle was a wealthy bachelor – ’ she shrugged ‘ – she could have married anybody.’

  ‘Then why didn’t she?’

  ‘At the time everyone assumed she was hanging on for something better, a title perhaps, or a stately home with acres, but I always thought there was more to it than
that. I used to watch her at parties and it was very clear to me that, while she enjoyed flirting and being the centre of attention, she couldn’t bear men touching her.’ She fell silent.

  ‘Go on,’ Cooper prompted after a moment or two.

  ‘It wasn’t until ten years later when my husband and I met James in Hong Kong and he told us the truth about Joanna’s parentage that it made sense.’ She sighed. ‘Not that I’ve ever really understood exactly what happened because, of course, child abuse and incest were kept under wraps in those days. James believed she encouraged Gerald, but I never did. It’s the one area where I always felt sorry for her. She was emotionally crippled by it, I think.’

  ‘So you’ve known for a long time that Mrs Lascelles wasn’t James Gillespie’s daughter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did Mrs Gillespie know you knew?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Didn’t that worry her?’

  ‘She knew I wouldn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘How could she know?’

  ‘She just did,’ said Jane flatly.

  What was it James Gillespie had called it? Mutual insurance.

  Without warning, as the back door closed behind him, Jack’s huge hand circled Joanna’s throat and drove her through the kitchen and into the hall. ‘Didn’t what happened to Mathilda teach you anything, you silly bitch?’ he said in a savage undertone.

  Cooper took out a cigarette, remembered where he was and put it back again. ‘Was it you who was friendly with Mr Gillespie, or your husband?’ he asked Jane.

  ‘Paul and he went through the war together, but I’d known him a long time as well.’