Family and Friends

by Emma Page

  Venn drank his coffee. ‘He wasn’t to know she was as ill as all that, she was fond of crying wolf. And he expected her brother to look in on her, he knew she could get Ruth or Jane Underwood to stay the night if she felt the need. All seems perfectly reasonable to me.’

  ‘That’s my point,’ Cottrell said with a sigh. ‘He could have banked on that, that it would all seem perfectly reasonable to you. Or anyone else that chose to poke about and ask questions.’ He scratched his cheek. ‘Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Neil Underwood didn’t call round to see his sister that night? When he was supposed to be so fond of her, always so concerned about her?’

  Venn gave a short laugh. ‘Easy enough to understand. A man gets home rather late, a beautiful wife waiting for him. Many ways a beautiful wife can detain a man.’ He sat up in his chair. ‘Yes,’ he said on a more lively note, ‘many ways a beautiful woman can make sure a man doesn’t go round to see his sister.’ He frowned. ‘I wonder.’ He drank the last of his coffee, stood up, yawned, looked at his watch, rubbed a hand across his face, sighed deeply.

  ‘Are we going to Southampton?’ Cottrell asked. ‘If we don’t go right away there’s no point in going at all.’

  Oh, let the damn ship sail, Venn thought angrily, no one’s going to thank me for prodding round, no one wants questions asked. No one except a silly young girl. And she’d probably thought better of it by this time, had probably turned her butterfly attention to other more absorbing matters such as a new dress, a new hairstyle. ‘I’m worn out,’ he said, ‘it’s been an irritating day.’

  ‘Sarah Pierson,’ Cottrell said. ‘If someone comes round asking where Sarah Pierson’s got to and it comes out that we just let it all—’

  ‘Oh damn Sarah Pierson,’ Venn said with force. ‘Who’s going to come round asking about her?’ He made an irritated sound. ‘I suppose there’s no help for it, I suppose I’ll never hear the end of it from you if I call the whole thing off.’ He flung a savage look at the sergeant. ‘Well, what are you sitting there for? If we’re going, let’s go.’

  He glanced at the phone. ‘I’d better ring my wife, let her know I won’t be home till God knows when.’ Accustomed to it all by now, Mrs Venn, used to putting plates of dinner in a slow oven, paid no attention nowadays to abrupt phone calls, had paid no attention for years, had made a life of her own, played bridge, organized charity concerts, drank quarts of morning coffee, gallons of afternoon tea, left him businesslike little notes propped up against the clock, arranged her days satisfactorily, or at least without complaint. It occurred to him sometimes that when the day finally came when he turned in his uniform, that he and his wife would find themselves grown into total strangers trying to think of something to say to each other, continuing to pencil little notes out of sheer force of habit. He wondered why any woman was fool enough to marry a policeman.

  He laid his hand on the phone. ‘We’d better call round and pick up Quigley. He can drive us down.’

  Cottrell stood up. Quigley wasn’t going to be very pleased to be called out–and doubtless his little bride wasn’t going to be very pleased either. He let out a long breath. Quigley might as well get used to the idea now that a copper was never off duty.

  ‘I’ll give him a ring,’ he said. ‘I’ll use the phone outside on the desk. Give him time to grab a bite to eat before we pick him up.’

  It was raining as Cottrell halted the car outside Quigley’s house. Venn glanced out with irritation at the closed front door; Quigley should have been ready and waiting by the gate.

  ‘The trouble with Quigley,’ he said, ‘is that he’s still playing houses with that wife of his.’

  Cottrell smiled. ‘Give them a year or two and it’ll be Fathers and Mothers they’ll be playing.’

  Venn looked at his watch. ‘Well, go in and tell him it’s Cops and Robbers just now,’ he said sourly. ‘We can’t sit out here all night.’

  Cottrell walked rapidly up the path and pressed the bell. The door was flung open almost at once by Sharon Quigley, a slim young woman with elaborately-dressed yellow hair that looked as if it had been bleached. She didn’t speak to Cottrell but jerked her head towards an inner room, indicating that he should come inside.

  Quigley was standing by the table with his coat on, he was gobbling down sausage rolls, swallowing scalding coffee, bitterly resigned to the indigestion that would strike him within an hour.

  ‘Get a move on,’ Cottrell said. ‘His lordship isn’t in the best of tempers.’ Not the only one, said Quigley’s anxious eyes, shafting a glance in the direction of Sharon who was standing with her arms folded in a hostile manner.

  ‘I suppose I’ve got to kick my heels here until bedtime.’ She levelled an unloving look at her husband. ‘I shall have to think about finding someone to take me out dancing in the evenings, I can see it’s going to be necessary,’ she said. The English shrew in embryo, Cottrell thought, aware once again of the undoubted advantages of single blessedness. Pretty enough now, sexy-looking in her way with her rather pouting mouth and slim figure, he saw her suddenly and clearly in fifteen years’ time, a fully-developed nag, her face hardened, her curves grown angular, still keeping determinedly abreast of fashion–in the way that the provinces interpreted the modes of London and Paris.

  ‘I’ll take you out dancing the very next free evening I get,’ Quigley said between mouthfuls, giving her a besotted and placating look, mercifully unaware of the picture of his beloved in the years to come which was forming itself in the sergeant’s mind.

  ‘No need actually to choke yourself,’ Cottrell said. ‘One minute more or less isn’t going to make all that difference.’ It will take him a long time to fall out of love, he thought, and longer still to admit it to himself–if he ever does get round to admitting it, probably won’t, too painful, better all round if he keeps the blinkers on. He saw Quigley in five, ten years’ time, shaking his head over the doings of his kids–for he would probably be allowed one child, or two at the most–he saw him in a further twenty years determinedly celebrating his silver wedding, boozily under the impression that what he had experienced deserved the name of happiness.

  ‘You coppers haven’t the faintest idea how to treat a wife,’ Sharon said.

  ‘I’m not married,’ Cottrell said and actually saw a look of patronizing compassion flit across the face of that poor clot Quigley.

  The constable banged down his cup and planted a brief but passionate kiss on the lips of his lady. ‘I’ll stop off somewhere and find you a nice little present,’ he said, apparently harbouring the delusion that the inspector was going to sit calmly in the car while his constable pottered around some late-night shops. ‘A box of chocolates, you’d like that.’ Perhaps it might turn out to be some smashing big case they were going on, he thought hopefully, he might cover himself in glory, Sharon might be able to boast about him all over the neighbourhood.

  She followed them to the door. ‘If it’s as good as the last present you brought me,’ she said as they let themselves out, ‘don’t bother. I don’t need any more ten-bob scarves.’ Quigley turned with protest on his face but Cottrell put an impatient hand on his arm and pulled him out.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ he said, ‘leave your love-life till you get back. Venn’ll tear a strip off you if you keep him waiting any longer.’

  ‘I took the scarf back to change it,’ Sharon said with needling malice. ‘Ten bob it cost, the girl told me.’

  ‘But it was nearly four pounds I gave for that scarf,’ Quigley said loudly as the door slammed shut. ‘Pure silk it was.’ Humiliatingly aware of the fact that he’d had to borrow from the sergeant to pay for it. ‘Sometimes Sharon gets a bit browned off.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘She says things just to annoy me.’ A trace of smugness worked its way back into his tone. ‘Can’t blame her, I suppose, must be a bit dull without me.’

  They reached the car and at once the mantle of the fawning husband fell from him and he was a young constable again,
bound for heaven knew what, a stirring evening’s work or hours of blank boredom.

  ‘Hope I haven’t kept you waiting, sir,’ he said deferentially to Venn who had reached a point where he was almost beyond speech. ‘But I thought I’d better have something to eat first, never know when we’ll get the chance again.’ He slid into the driving-seat and Cottrell got into the back, beside the inspector. As Quigley switched on the engine he glanced over his shoulder and saw that Venn was lying back with his eyes closed, like a man who had temporarily decided to take no part whatever in what was going on.

  All three of them settled into silence as the car edged its way out of Milbourne, through a stretch of open country, running again into built-up areas, evening crowds, pink-shaded lamps shining out from uncurtained windows, neon strips glittering from the façades of hotels, rain dimpling the puddles, the harsh glare of street lights, the grind of traffic, surges of music, and again the dimly-lit rural roads, a man and a dog keeping close in by the hedge, a solitary cyclist caught in the headlights.

  This is a right fool’s errand, Venn thought. If Pierson is on the Kyrenia he’ll have a very good reason for being there. He’s a bachelor, no one to consider but himself, why shouldn’t he blue his inheritance from his father if he wanted to, walk out of his job, put up his house to let? Plenty of other jobs when he got back, plenty of other houses.

  And Sarah Pierson? Might have turned up at the hotel in Bournemouth by now, having stopped to visit a friend somewhere for a day or two. Or, for all they knew, she might simply be in Southampton now, seeing her brother off, with full knowledge and approval of his trip. He visualized the pair of them in a stateroom, Sarah arranging a bunch of flowers in a vase, telling her brother to be sure to send her postcards, looking round in astonishment at the three policemen barging in, the entry of the heavies.

  And as to why she hadn’t informed the Bournemouth hotel that she wouldn’t be turning up for a day or two–she probably had informed them, by first-class mail, which probably meant the hotel would receive the letter a couple of weeks after she’d actually walked into the hotel lounge and signed the register. He had half a mind to stop the car, tell Quigley to turn round and drive them back to Milbourne.

  Precisely what was he going to say to Sarah Pierson if she was there in the stateroom fussing over a vase of blooms? ‘Do you know anything about a cat, Miss Pierson?’ . . . ‘A cat, Inspector?’ Her eyes, baffled, bewildered . . . three huge coppers pounding up a gangplank to enquire about a cat . . . He blinked away the distasteful image and conjured up instead his habitual blissful vision of retirement, a cottage by the sea, fuchsias blooming in the hedgerows.

  CHAPTER 18

  Everywhere there was bustle and noise, stewards, passengers, relatives, chattering or tearful, messengers carrying sheaves of blooms encased in Cellophane. The door of stateroom number twenty-four stood ajar. Venn led the way, somewhat refreshed after his doze in the car, his mind clear, geared for action but already more than three-quarters resigned to fruitlessness. Cottrell followed him, ready for anything, but anxious chiefly to be done with it, to get back to Milbourne and start the real work, closing the net round Owen Yorke. Constable Quigley brought up the rear, with only the haziest notion of what was going on but with one hand ready to flash out his notebook.

  Venn raised his hand and rapped at the stateroom door, entering at once so that he was already over the threshold before a voice had time to bid them come in. Sarah Pierson was stooping over an open suitcase, she straightened herself and looked at Venn who closed his eyes for a fraction of an instant on the piercing thought: I knew it, all a complete waste of time, then she sent a glance round the elegant room, a calm, contained glance. She looked back at Venn with a faint smile. ‘I thought you might come,’ she said.

  Venn said quietly, ‘I’d like a word with your brother. Is he here?’ He jerked his head in the direction of the stateroom next door.

  ‘Arnold?’ Sarah said on a note of surprise and in that instant Cottrell’s brain sprang into motion, thought succeeded thought at immense speed, he saw the whole thing bright and crystal-clear. He turned to Quigley and said in a fierce whisper, ‘Where did you buy that silk scarf? For Sharon?’

  ‘At Underwood’s,’ Quigley said, totally baffled but automatically adopting the same veiled tone.

  ‘I’m afraid Arnold isn’t here,’ Sarah said. ‘Is he in some kind of trouble? I’ll do anything I can to help.’ She smiled. ‘Provided of course it doesn’t interfere with my sailing.’ Before she had half finished her utterance Cottrell laid a hand on Venn’s sleeve, his fingers dug significantly into his arm, he murmured, ‘She did it, by herself.’ Sarah didn’t catch the words, she added, ‘I hope it won’t take long. As you can see–’ she gestured at the cases ranged in the middle of the floor–‘I’m rather busy.’

  Venn kept his eyes fixed on her, doing his best in the light of Cottrell’s murmur to take a massive mental leap, reassess the entire situation. Cottrell was no fool, he must have seen something not immediately apparent to the inspector’s seeking brain.

  Cottrell moved a step forward. In that first moment when she had glanced round the cabin he had caught the look of farewell in her eyes, the look of a woman who sees a great treasure slip from her grasp.

  ‘An expensive trip,’ he said. ‘A long and very expensive trip. We know where you found the money for it, we’ve had a word with Miss Gibbs.’ No way she could tell he was trimming the truth. At the mention of the name she inclined her head with a little motion that said as plainly as words, ‘So! Anthea Gibbs! Of all people!’ The faint smile returned to her lips.

  ‘You sold merchandise at full price,’ Cottrell said, aware of Venn listening intently, catching on, making a few deductions of his own. ‘You put it through the books at very greatly reduced sale prices. And you pocketed the difference. Only occasionally at first. If you’d found you couldn’t get away with it you’d have been able to explain it as a mistake. But when you did get away with it you stepped up the pace. Mrs Yorke took less and less interest in the shop and you grew more and more bold.’

  ‘Don’t tell me Arnold went through the books and spotted it,’ Sarah said with scorn. ‘He has about as much notion of accounts—’

  ‘You got away with a very tidy sum over the years,’ Cottrell continued with the same massive certainty.

  ‘They owed it to me,’ she said flatly. ‘Every penny. I worked for a contemptible wage, they refused me a bonus, I simply took what was mine.’

  ‘And when Zena Yorke took it into her head to deal with Miss Gibbs herself you knew the game was up, you went round to her house and poisoned her.’ Sarah drew herself up very straight, she tilted her head back and gave the sergeant a long unwavering look. ‘You had a little chat with her,’ Cottrell said, visualizing the scene, ‘you talked about the shop, about Miss Gibbs, you fussed over her health, you went down to the kitchen and made her a glass of hot milk, you mixed into it a lethal dose of sleeping-pills. Your stepfather’s pills,’ he added with sudden inspiration, ‘the pills left over from his last illness. You added a good stiff dose of alcohol, just to make sure–’ he couldn’t be certain about the alcohol but Zena had had a reputation for tippling and it was a pretty safe guess. ‘And then you watched her drink it.’

  ‘No need for anyone else to put brandy into a glass of milk for Zena,’ Sarah said with a trace of amusement. ‘She was quite capable of seeing to that for herself.’ She gave Cottrell an open smile. ‘Very neat, Sergeant, a good imaginative exercise, but I think you may have some difficulty in proving it.’

  ‘But you couldn’t stay till she’d finished the milk,’ Cottrell said. Outside the stateroom voices laughed and called, people went hurrying by, the cabin seemed a little island of calm in the noise and commotion. ‘Perhaps you thought you heard a car, or you were afraid someone might come, or Zena may have made it plain you’d stayed long enough. At all events you didn’t see her finish the milk. And she didn’t actually finish it, she
leaned down after you’d gone and put the glass under the bed, still half full. It stayed there until a week ago when it was knocked over and drunk by a stray cat.’

  She raised her eyebrows in an expression of wry acceptance. ‘One can’t foresee everything,’ she said lightly. ‘I dare say you’ve found that out in your line of business.’

  ‘And when you heard about the cat,’ the inspector broke in, ‘you got into your car and went round to pay a visit to Mrs Bond.’ About time he stuck his oar in, he thought, though he couldn’t deny Cottrell had done very well. He flicked a look at Quigley and was relieved to see the lad scribbling away in his notebook, getting it all down. ‘You repeated the same performance there,’ he said. ‘She had a bad cold, you showed concern, mixed her a nice little drink of hot milk and brandy, laced with your father’s pills.’ Should he caution her now? No, better leave it a few minutes longer, give her time to talk, the formal caution had a way of clamping lips tight shut, he’d seen that often enough.

  ‘There was an inquest on Emily Bond.’ Sarah gave her attention now to the inspector. ‘I read all about it in the paper. She mixed the drink herself, only her own fingerprints on the glass, it said so, everyone was satisfied.’

  ‘Fresh evidence,’ Venn said, just as capable as Cottrell of manipulating the facts. ‘That’s why we’re here. We’ve had a little talk with one or two folk in the district. You were seen leaving Mrs Bond’s cottage on the Friday evening.’ He held his breath.

  ‘I never went near her cottage on the Friday evening,’ Sarah said triumphantly, ‘it was the Thursday—’ she clapped a hand to her mouth.

  Venn released his breath. ‘Quite so,’ he said apologetically. ‘It was the Thursday you went there. Stupid of me, I wasn’t thinking for a moment. And of course we have your fingerprints on the glass underneath Zena Yorke’s bed.’ No way she could know Jane Underwood had washed up the glass, had returned it to the kitchen. He saw her look down at her hands, the thought ran plainly across her face . . . Surely I wore gloves . . . is it possible I was fool enough to remove my gloves? ‘You shouldn’t have taken your gloves off,’ he said softly.