She was in exactly the same position as when Thanet had left her and he guessed she had done nothing in the interval except stare blankly at the screen.
She swung slowly back around as they entered and shook her head. ‘I simply can’t believe that Virginia is dead. I just don’t understand how it can have happened.’
‘That’s what we’re determined to find out,’ said Thanet.
His new sense of purpose must have shown in his tone of voice because she looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?’ She glanced from him to Lineham. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’
‘It’s just been confirmed that Mrs Mintar’s death was no accident – that there was a struggle before she was thrown down the well.’
Her eyes widened with shock and her hand flew up to her throat. ‘Oh no,’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, Ginny . . . How awful. How terrible . . .’ She reached blindly into her pocket for a handkerchief as tears suddenly welled up and overflowed, then swung her chair around so that her back was towards them.
Thanet gave her a few minutes and then said, ‘Mrs Amos, I can see how upset you are, but we really do need your help. When we arranged this appointment we only suspected what we now know for certain.’
She wiped her eyes, blew her nose and swivelled back to face them, making a visible effort to pull herself together. ‘What is it you want from me?’
‘We’re trying to gather together as much information as possible about Mrs Mintar – we’ll call her Virginia too, if you don’t mind, to distinguish her from her mother-in-law – and we understand that you and she had been friends for some time.’
She nodded. ‘We do go back a long way. We were at school together.’
‘So tell us about her,’ said Thanet softly.
Susan Amos stared at him, blew her nose once more and put her handkerchief away. Then she raked back her hair in what was clearly an habitual gesture. ‘Most people didn’t understand her, you know. They just saw what Virginia wanted them to see, the social butterfly who lived for pleasure. But she wasn’t like that at all underneath.’
‘What was she like?’
Susan hesitated. ‘Vulnerable,’ she said at last. ‘And that was why she put up such a smokescreen. She felt she couldn’t afford to let people know that, or they’d hurt her.’
‘Why? Had something specific happened, to make her feel that way?’
Susan gave him a long, penetrating look. Clearly she was wondering how much to tell him.
Thanet waited and then, when she did not continue, said, ‘I can see you’re wondering how on earth this can be relevant to Virginia’s death, but believe me, it might well be.’
But she still held back and he leaned forward and said softly, ‘Mrs Amos. Sometime on Saturday night Virginia must have said or done something to precipitate what happened to her. The more we learn about her and the better we get to understand her, the more likely it is that we might work out what that something was. And that might help us to find out who killed her.’
She thought about what he had said for a moment or two and then stood up. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll do whatever I can to help, of course I will. But it’s obviously going to take some time. Would you like some coffee? I could do with a cup myself.’
She needed an interval in which to recover from the shock, Thanet realised. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
In a few minutes she returned with a tray bearing a cafetièr and three mugs.
‘Real coffee!’ said Thanet, pleased to see that she looked much calmer. ‘What a treat.’
She waited until they were all settled and then she sat back, nursing her mug in both hands.
‘You asked if anything specific had happened to make her so vulnerable. And the answer is yes, several things. The first, to my knowledge anyway, was when we were fourteen. You have to understand that Virginia absolutely adored her father. He always made a tremendous fuss of her, taking her on outings, buying her presents and so on. He was so good-looking, too, real romantic hero stuff, we all used to swoon over him . . . Then suddenly, without warning, he just walked out on them – on Virginia and her mother – and they never saw him again. Virginia was absolutely shattered, I can tell you. She always felt it must have been her fault – children often do in those circumstances, I believe.’
‘Why? Had she been giving him a hard time?’
‘No worse than most teenagers, I imagine. But she couldn’t see it that way.’
‘She must have realised her parents weren’t getting on, surely?’ said Lineham.
‘Apparently not. I think half the trouble was that her mother was such a doormat he left out of sheer boredom. And that’s why Virginia was so unprepared for it to happen, why it was such a shattering experience for her. I mean, if there had been endless rows it wouldn’t have been such a shock, would it?’
‘And he said nothing to her about leaving, before he went?’ Couldn’t face her, probably, thought Thanet. What a coward!
‘Not a hint. She just went home one day and found he’d gone, moved out lock, stock and barrel. She couldn’t believe what her mother was telling her. Apparently she ran straight upstairs to her parents’ bedroom and threw open the doors to his wardrobe. And it was completely empty. ‘There wasn’t even a hanger left!” she said, when she was telling me about it later, and the tears were pouring down her face. “It’s almost as though he never existed.’ ”
‘Poor kid,’ said Lineham. ‘What a rotten thing to do.’
‘She just went to pieces at school. She was quite bright, you know, there’d even been talk of accelerated O levels, but her work took a nose-dive and never recovered. She just couldn’t concentrate, used to spend all her time staring out of the window. And nothing any of the teachers said to her made any difference. To give them credit, they really did try to help her, to make allowances, but it didn’t help in the slightest. No, I don’t think she ever got over it. And it certainly changed her.’
‘In what way?’
‘Until then she’d always been a carefree, happy-go-lucky sort of person, very lively and cheerful. After her father left, she was much quieter, more withdrawn. Well, that was understandable, of course. But then a bit later on she changed again. She became, well, rather wild, I suppose. She didn’t seem to care whether she got into trouble at school, no matter how many warnings or punishments she was given, and at home she was so rude to her mother I really felt sorry for the poor woman. Eventually the girls at school got fed up with it, started to avoid her and give her the cold shoulder, and one day I said to her, “Look, Ginny, if you go on like this you’ll soon have no friends left. I’ve just about had enough myself.” And that did seem to make a difference. But in some respects that attitude never left her.’
‘Behaving as if she didn’t care what people thought, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘And as if she didn’t care how her behaviour affected them?’ said Thanet gently. He knew it might be difficult for Susan to admit this, if true.
And indeed, she did hesitate before saying with a sigh, ‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘And am I right in thinking this especially applied to men?’
Susan gave him one of those long looks. ‘I really don’t like doing this, you know.’
‘Yes, I do know. I’m sure I’d feel exactly the same if it were my closest friend who’d been killed. It’s somehow all right to talk about their good points but not to reveal their weaknesses. It’s not only that we feel disloyal or as though we’re talking about them behind their backs, but also that the dead can’t defend themselves. They have no right of reply.’
‘That’s it, exactly.’ She sat in silence for a minute or two and Thanet let her. If Susan was to continue to talk freely it would only be by her own choice. At last she stirred and said, ‘I still can’t believe she’s dead. She was such a . . . vibrant person. It’s so sad, to think of all that vitality just . . . snuffed out.’ Her tears had started to flow again and she dabbed at them impatient
ly. ‘I’m sorry. This doesn’t help, I know. What were you asking me, before we digressed?’
‘About Virginia’s attitude to men.’
She compressed her lips and shook her head. ‘There’s no point in pretending she treated them well. She didn’t. In fact, I often wondered . . .’
‘What?’
‘If she was paying out the male sex in general for what her father did to her.’
‘Not an unusual thing to happen, I believe.’
‘And it was so easy for her, too. You didn’t know her, but she had this sort of magnetic attraction. Men couldn’t resist her. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. And she couldn’t resist trying to prove her power over them. It’s as if she was driven to it. She told me once, she regarded every new man who came along as a challenge. And when she was tired of them, she just dropped them. I think it was almost a matter of principle with her, to be the first one to end the affair. I don’t think she ever truly loved any one of them, in fact I’m not sure if she was capable of it. It was so sad, really. She never knew what loving someone was really like. There was something in her which made her hold back – the fear of rejection, I suppose. She told me once that she hoped she never would fall in love because she simply couldn’t bear the thought of the pain she would have to endure if he left her.’
And when she was tired of them, she just dropped them. A recipe for disaster if ever there was one, thought Thanet.
‘What about her husband?’ said Lineham.
‘She was fond of Ralph, I’m sure, but her relationship with him was different. She would never have left him, he was her anchor, and she needed him. All the same, it was almost as if . . . How shall I put it? Almost as if she was constantly driven to test him, to see if he, too, would finally give up on her and leave. From little things she said I’m certain she felt guilty about it, but she couldn’t seem to stop.’
‘And did he ever show any sign of leaving her?’
Susan shook her head. ‘No. I think Ralph understood her very well. Also, he’s pretty realistic. His job takes him away for months at a time, as I’m sure you know, and he was well aware that Ginny wasn’t the sort of girl to sit around twiddling her thumbs while she waited for him to come home. As long as she was still there when he did, that was all that mattered to him.’
‘Even so, it couldn’t have been easy for him, to sit by while his wife flirted with other men.’
‘If you’re thinking Ralph could have pushed her down that well, forget it. He’d never have hurt her. Never.’
Thanet could see that there was no point in pursuing that line. ‘So, her father’s abandonment affected her deeply. But you said there were other things . . .’
‘Two, in fact.’
‘So what were they?’
FOURTEEN
Susan stood up and stretched, placing her palms as support on the small of her back and leaning backwards. ‘Sorry, I get so stiff, sitting,’ she said.
Thanet knew how she felt. How many thousands of times had he himself tried to ease an aching back with just that movement? He had suffered from back problems for years and although regular visits to the chiropractor ensured that the pain was never as severe or chronic as it had once been, he could nevertheless sympathise with a fellow sufferer.
‘I think I’ll stand up for a while,’ she said. She walked across to the window and leaned against the sill, facing them. ‘If you want to understand Ginny you have to appreciate that although you wouldn’t have expected it, from looking at her, she was in fact a very maternal person. Her children mattered to her more than anyone or anything else. And she was a brilliant mother – patient, loving, willing to take endless trouble on their behalf. That was why what happened was so tragic.’
‘Caroline’s elopement, you mean?’ said Lineham.
‘That too, later, yes. But you obviously don’t know about the baby . . . ? No? Well, Ginny was only eighteen when she got married. It was January 1976. I remember that because I’d just gone up to university, the previous September. Ginny had failed most of her O levels and left school at sixteen, but somehow we never lost touch. She wasn’t qualified for anything, of course, but she did look gorgeous and had a great sense of style, so she got a job in an exclusive little boutique, which seemed to suit her very well. Anyway, to cut a long story short she met Ralph and they got married. His mother wasn’t too happy about it. I expect you’ll have gathered that she and Ginny didn’t exactly hit it off, and of course Ginny was very young. I think what sugared the pill as far as Mrs Mintar senior was concerned was Ralph’s suggestion that he and Ginny take over Windmill Court and convert that single-storey wing of outbuildings into a self-contained flat for her. Apparently ever since Ralph’s father died she’d been complaining about the inconvenience of maintaining that house, especially as she was away such a lot on her plant-finding expeditions. I suppose she felt she had to keep it ticking over for Ralph’s sake.
‘Anyway, Ginny became pregnant right away and to my surprise she was delighted about it, told me she felt that at last she’d have someone of her very own to love. But sadly it all went wrong. The baby was born severely handicapped – its brain hadn’t developed properly – and it only lived for a few hours. Ginny was devastated.’
Please God that wouldn’t happen to Bridget’s baby! Once again Thanet was having to force himself to concentrate. The mere mention of babies these days sent his mind scurrying off to that bed in the maternity ward where his daughter was lying, helplessly awaiting developments.
‘I was away at university at the time, of course, and didn’t see her until Christmas, by which time she was pregnant again – against her doctor’s advice, I might add. However, all went well and Caroline was born. Ginny was ecstatic, but I don’t think she ever got over losing the first one. She was a girl, too. And of course, that’s why she’s worked for MENCAP all these years.’
‘She worked for MENCAP? We didn’t know that.’
‘She didn’t exactly shout about it but she’s been on the committee ever since. She was particularly good at fund-raising. And once a week she’d go along to the Wednesday club – that’s a social evening where mentally handicapped adults mix with ordinary people. They have Scottish dancing and play simple games. If you’d seen Ginny there . . . I think she felt that any one of them could have been the baby she lost. And they all adored her.’
So, thought Thanet. Over twenty years of selfless commitment. An entirely new light on Virginia’s character.
‘But then, of course,’ said Susan, leaving the windowsill to return to her chair, ‘came the next disaster, Caroline’s elopement. You’ve obviously heard about that. And this time . . . You’ve seen all the stuff piled up in Ginny’s room, I imagine?’
Thanet nodded.
‘After Caroline went it was as if . . .’ Susan shook her head sorrowfully. ‘You know I said Ginny went haywire after her father left? Well this time it was ten times worse, as if she’d finally flipped. She seemed to lose all restraint, take all the brakes off, so that everything she did was over the top. The shopping is a typical example. She’d always loved clothes and enjoyed buying them but now, well, you’ll have seen for yourself, it was a compulsion, an obsession, a sickness. She’d always enjoyed going to the Health Club, but now it wasn’t just a daily twenty-minute swim it was three-quarters of an hour or an hour – on top of a session in the gym or an hour’s tennis. And as for—’ Susan broke off.
Thanet guessed what she had been going to say. ‘As for men . . . ?’
Susan pressed her lips together as if to forbid herself to elaborate, but it was obvious that Thanet had hit the mark.
‘But Caroline’s elopement was – how long ago?’ said Lineham. ‘Four years?’
Susan nodded.
‘You’d have thought she’d have begun to get over it by now.’
‘Precisely. But that was the trouble. She didn’t. If anything she was getting worse.’
‘Didn’t anyone suggest she tried to
get help?’ said Thanet.
‘Of course! I know Ralph did, because she told me so. And God knows I tried often enough. But she just wouldn’t listen, didn’t want to know. “Stop fussing, Sue,” she’d say. “I’m perfectly all right!”’
‘What about Mr Mintar?’ said Thanet. ‘How did he react to Caroline’s elopement?’
‘Well, that was half the trouble, of course. Caroline was Ralph’s favourite, you see, no doubt about that, so it must have hit him really hard too. But he just isn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve and his way of coping was simply to shut out the memory of her altogether. He said as far as he was concerned she had made her bed and she would have to lie on it. He didn’t want to hear her name mentioned again.’
‘Impossible, surely!’ said Lineham.
‘Maybe. But it certainly didn’t help Ginny – or Rachel either, for that matter – to have to pretend Caro had never existed. If Ginny and Ralph had been able to, well, grieve together, it would have helped her no end, I’m sure. As it was she just had to bottle it all up most of the time and I think that was why this bizarre behaviour began to build up. I kept hoping that she would gradually adjust, come to terms with the fact that Caroline was gone for good, but she never could. She even employed a private detective to try and track her down at one time, you know, but it was no good. The pair of them seemed to have vanished into thin air. And lately, of course, this business with Rachel hasn’t helped. Neither she nor Ralph were happy about Rachel’s latest choice of boyfriend. Poor Ginny! Rachel only got back from a year away in Switzerland in June, and Ginny was so looking forward to having her home again. She hadn’t wanted her to go away to finishing school in the first place, but Ralph insisted. And then, before she’d been back five minutes, Rachel had taken up with this tennis coach.’
‘He’s her fiancé now. They apparently got engaged on Saturday night, broke the news to Rachel’s parents that evening.’
‘Oh no!’ Susan breathed. ‘Engaged. Oh, my God. How did Ginny and Ralph react, do you know?’
‘Opened a bottle of champagne, I gather.’
Dead and Gone Page 16
