Sins Out of School

by Jeanne M. Dams

  “The BBC? In Canterbury?”

  “Who said anything about Canterbury? In London, of course.”

  “Sorry. Amanda’s good friend—she does have one—thought you lived in Canterbury.”

  Gillian shrugged. “If she let slip to somebody that I existed, she would have made up a location for me, because—well, I’ll explain all that.

  “So, anyway, I went to London, but for the first few weeks, I tried to stay in touch with Amanda. I wanted to be with her when the baby came, for one thing. I knew damn well Mum wouldn’t be allowed to go, and there aren’t any aunts or cousins or anyone.

  “Well, so I rang her up every few days. At first it was all right. She sounded more or less normal. Oh, she was tired, and a bit fed up, but of course the whole situation was a mess. She had a husband she didn’t care tuppence for, and her father had thrown her out, and she’d had to move house when she was seven months pregnant—all that. But she always seemed happy to talk to me, and of course she was excited about the baby. We never talked very long, but we made plans for me going down when the time came.

  “And then one day I phoned a bit later than usual, and the bastard answered. I asked for Amanda, and he said I couldn’t talk to her. Of course I thought he meant she was having a bath, or something, so I asked when I should call back. And he said never.”

  “He said what?”

  “He told me, quite coldly, that I was a ‘bad influence on her,’ that he was ‘trying to reform her, save her from her life of sin,’ and that ‘she had no need for her wordly family.’ Those were his exact words. He told me he would not allow her to see or talk to me anymore.”

  “How would he know, if you were careful to call only in the daytime?”

  “You think that didn’t occur to me? I phoned the next day. She hung up on me, and when I rang again, she didn’t answer. Two days later I got a note in the mail saying he’d put a tape recorder of some kind on the phone, and I mustn’t phone again, or even write, ever.

  “That was the last I heard from her until she dropped in out of the blue that day in London. We didn’t talk much then, as a matter of fact. When it’s been years, there’s too much to say, and not enough, all at the same time. And she was nervous as a cat the whole time. I really think she thought the bastard was going to find her there, somehow, and punish her.”

  “Do you think,” I asked unwillingly, “that he ever actually beat her? Her good friend says not, but—”

  “I asked her, that day when she came to visit. Miriam was out of the room for a minute, and I asked, straight out. I hadn’t seen any bruises, but that wasn’t why I believed her when she said not. There was something about the way she said it that was absolutely convincing. Almost as if she wished it were that simple.”

  I shivered.

  “Right. Chilling, isn’t it?”

  “Utterly. I hope you’ll find her happier now.” It didn’t take the heavy irony of Gillian’s look to make me realize what a stupid idea that was. Happy, right. With a possible murder charge hovering in the background and nameless fears about her daughter, fears I thought I understood.

  “Yes, well,” I said meaninglessly. “I still think I’d better at least point you in the right direction for her house. When do you want to go?”

  “I don’t, if you want the truth. But the sooner I go, the sooner we can settle things. There’s something we haven’t talked about, though.”

  “If it’s money,” I said hastily, “I mean, if you need some help with Miriam’s expenses, I imagine we can—”

  “I said I was badly paid. I didn’t say I was poor. Daddy dear is so happy to have me out of his life, and so eager to make sure I stay there, that he makes a contribution from time to time. I don’t need money!”

  So vehement was her tone and so fierce her glare that I was sure she did need money, but plainly she wasn’t going to take any from us. “Sorry. What, then?”

  “I don’t know what I’m walking into, that’s what. If Amanda didn’t kill the bastard, who did? Is some maniac going to walk in the door and kill us all?”

  I sighed deeply, and so did Alan. “We don’t know, Gillian. Unless there’s something the police haven’t told us, there’s literally not a clue.”

  “Why should the police tell you anything? I thought they never said a word to the public.”

  Drat. I’d had no intention of telling her about Alan, but now I’d put my foot in it. “Alan has special contacts. Before he retired, he was the chief constable.”

  “I see.” Gillian’s eyes narrowed; her voice hardened. All her suspicions, all her defenses were up again. “Oh, yes, I think I do see, finally. So that’s what this is all in aid of, is it? The Good Samaritan gets the sister down from London, picks her brains, softens her up, gets her to talk to the murder suspect, to spy out the situation and then report back to the Bill—is that the game? Sorry, I’m not playing.” She pushed her chair back with a scrape and stood up.

  “Gillian.” Alan’s deep voice stopped her. He was as angry as I, I could tell, but with him it comes out as steely control, and it’s very intimidating. “I have no idea why you have leapt to these conclusions, but there is no basis for them, and no possible excuse for your rudeness. My wife has put herself to considerable trouble, and experienced considerable distress, in an attempt to help your sister. The least she can expect from you is simple courtesy.”

  She looked from one of us to the other. “So you’re doing this out of pure, disinterested kindness, right? Is that what I’m expected to believe?”

  “I don’t know that I care what you believe, Ms. Blake,” I said, using the name deliberately. “Nor do I greatly care what you do. I begin to think Miriam would be better off with her mother, after all. Your imagination has plainly been influenced by what you write, and your outlook on life, perhaps, by your father.”

  She gave me a look of pure hatred and pulled a cigarette out of her pocket.

  I snapped. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, smoke the thing if it’ll put you in a better mood. Smoke five of them at once and die a year or two sooner, for all I care! But get it into your head that I am not a police spy, whatever that might be, and I want to get Miriam out of this town because she’s a sweet little girl who’s had as much as she can take. Furthermore, I’ve gotten involved in all this at least as much out of curiosity as kindness, and I admit it, so you can put that in your—your cigarette—and smoke it, too! I just hope you can cut down around Miriam. She doesn’t need lung cancer along with everything else.”

  For a moment I thought I’d gone too far. Then Gillian shrugged, broke the cigarette in half, and dropped it into her coffee cup. “I’ve been trying to quit,” she said mildly.

  I waited, but there was nothing more, so I accepted the gesture as an apology and took a deep breath. “If you think we can spend ten minutes together in a car without tearing each other’s hair out, I’m ready to go as soon as you are.”

  “Let’s not chance it,” she said with a trace of a grin. “I’ll follow you.”

  She was dressed by the time I’d tidied up the kitchen, and we were off, she behind me in an old, battered, but evidently powerful Jaguar. It was a low-slung, sporty-looking model in British racing green, whose engine snarled impatiently at the slow pace I set.

  It was the sort of day one often gets in an English December, not really cold but gray and damp, with the threat of rain any minute. Perhaps, I thought as I drove, it was partly the general gloom that had touched off Gillian. My moods are greatly affected by the weather; why not hers?

  Or maybe she was just a prickly sort of person. Certainly her sister was, and I could imagine that growing up with the Honorable Mr. Blake might put a rough edge on anyone’s temper.

  My own temper hadn’t been exactly serene, either, had it?

  Ah, well, the situation was difficult. And if I had any insight into Amanda’s mind at all, it was going to get worse before it got better. If I had any sense, I’d leave Gillian at the house and beat
it out of there.

  But then I wouldn’t know what went on, and I very much wanted—needed, I corrected myself—to know. So far I had absolutely no ideas about who might have killed John Doyle, beyond the general suspicion of everyone who knew him.

  Good grief! The thought hit me so suddenly that the car swerved. I nearly hit a bicycle that was parked by the side of the road, and a screech of brakes behind me told me Gillian had nearly hit me.

  Could she be the one?

  She had hated and resented the man, and she’d had good cause. He had caused her estrangement from her sister, and had bullied and tormented that sister. True, the estrangement had happened years ago, and Gillian’d had no contact with Doyle ever since, but she struck me as a good hater, one who could keep a grudge alive for a long time.

  She lived in London, but London, as she had proved last night, was less than an hour away for someone who drove the way she did. She lived alone and worked at home. There would have been nothing to prevent her driving to Sherebury, murdering Doyle, and driving back again, getting to bed not much later than her usual time.

  I got the car back under control and tried to do the same for my mind. Given the physical possibility of the thing, why would a resentment that had been simmering for years suddenly boil over? A person doesn’t simply decide, one night, to kill someone she hardly knows, no matter what she may have against him. There has to be a catalyst, an incident, and since Gillian and Amanda hadn’t been in touch with each other for years—

  But I didn’t know that, did I? I knew what Gillian had told me, but why did she have to be telling me the truth? I remembered the maxim practiced by Miss Marple, one of my favorite fictional sleuths: Never believe what anyone says. Like the detective she was admonishing at the time, I tend to be too trusting.

  After all, I thought as I absentmindedly negotiated a small roundabout and turned off on the wrong street, Amanda Blake had been somewhere on that day she went AWOL. Why not London?

  15

  IT took me a while to retrace my steps and get back on the right road to Amanda’s house, but I did it eventually. Untangling the snarl of thoughts in my mind was harder. Of course I didn’t really believe that Gillian was a murderer. On the other hand …

  I wanted very much to see Amanda’s face when she first saw her sister at the door. I wanted to know whether the visit was in fact a surprise. Surely I could tell from their greeting whether or not they had seen each other recently, made plans, perhaps made plots?

  I was defeated by Amanda’s paranoia about visitors. Once again it was Miriam who answered the door (after repeated rings and knocks), but when I attempted to talk to the little girl, Gillian took over.

  “I suppose you’re Miriam. You won’t remember me, but I’m your aunt. We met once when you were about four. Let us in, there’s a good girl.”

  “But I don’t know you! Mummy said—”

  “Gillian?” The voice from somewhere inside sounded just as astonished as I might have expected if the speaker was greeting a long-lost sister. But I couldn’t see the face, or the body language that sometimes tells a different story.

  The door closed, then opened. Amanda stood in the doorway looking blank. Gillian stepped forward. “Surprise, surprise, Mandy! Here’s your big, bad sister come to your aid in a crisis. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  There was no embrace. Amanda merely stood aside, an arm draped protectively around Miriam’s shoulders. No one said anything.

  Then the moment broke. Gillian said, in a too-high, too-bright voice, “So this is Miriam. She’s changed.”

  “Children do in five years.” Amanda’s voice had as little expression as her face.

  I stood there, uncomfortable. I had precipitated this situation. Was it up to me to do something about it?

  Probably. I moistened my lips. “Amanda, may we sit down? There are some things to talk about.”

  Gillian directed a sharp glance at me. “There are things Mandy and I need to talk about. There’s no need for you to stay, now you’ve got me here.”

  “You got her here?” Amanda’s voice rose. “Why? How?”

  “I thought you needed some help, and your sister was the obvious one—”

  “How did you know I had a sister? How do you know anything about my family? Why are you prying into my affairs?”

  “Mummy,” said Miriam in a scared little voice. “Mummy, it’s all right. Don’t be upset. Things are all right now that Daddy’s not here anymore. Please, Mummy, don’t worry.”

  Something inside me tightened, clenched. “Mrs. Doyle, I simply felt that perhaps you needed some help with Miriam. She’s under considerable strain, anyone can see that, and I thought—”

  “You thought! You thought! Who are you to tell me what my daughter needs? What do you know about my kind of life? You push your way in here, knowing you’re not wanted, pretending to help. You pry, you make us say things we don’t mean. You find my sister, somehow, and force her back into my life. You think you have all the answers. Well, let me tell you something. You don’t know a thing about what we’ve had to deal with, Miriam and I. Has anyone ever told you you were a worm, an unrepentant sinner, day after day after day? Has anyone ever taken everything you valued out of your life, everything that meant hope and happiness and comfort? Have you ever watched someone squeezing life and joy out of your child, month after endless month?”

  She caught a ragged breath. “You don’t know what hopelessness is. You don’t know what it means to be caught like a rat in a cage, to try and try to think of a way out and know that there is none. You know nothing about it, you with your fine clothes and your fine food and your fine house. There’s nothing you can do for us. There’s nothing I want you to do for us. Leave us alone!”

  Sobbing, she clasped Miriam to her fiercely.

  Gillian said, “I told you not to come. I think you’ve done enough damage here. You’d better go.”

  I went.

  I had planned, this morning, to visit the bank where John Doyle had worked. I knew the manager would tell me nothing. Bank managers are first cousins to oysters, even under normal circumstances. When a crime had been committed, I could imagine that they would try to pretend it hadn’t happened. Things like murder could have no connection with their bank.

  I had thought, however, that Doyle’s fellow employees might be able to tell me something useful. I might learn, for example, whether anyone at the bank had particularly hated the man. There was probably no point in asking if he had any particular friends. I thought I knew the answer to that one.

  Now, though, my heart wasn’t in it. The police would already have questioned anybody who had close connections with Doyle. The police weren’t stupid. They’d solve this murder eventually, and I could just stay out of it. Amanda didn’t want my help. Maybe she would accept help from Gillian. Maybe not.

  And if she didn’t, what of the child? What of Miriam, nine years old and caught up in a nightmare?

  “She isn’t your responsibility!” I said, out loud.

  Right. Pass by on the other side. You’re a lot less likely to get hurt that way.

  I pulled into my garage. I had some thinking to do, and it was time I let Alan help me. I’d played this alone long enough. Whatever the consequences, Alan had to know what I feared. “Tell the truth and shame the devil,” as the old adage had it.

  He was working at his computer, but when he looked up and saw my face, he shut the thing down immediately and stood. “What is it, love?”

  “I’ve made a big mess of things, and I don’t know what to do now.”

  “That sounds uncharacteristic. Shall we have some tea and talk about it?”

  Tea. The English chicken soup. I almost smiled as I followed him into the kitchen.

  “Now,” he said when the tea was poured out, steaming, and we sat waiting for it to cool enough to drink. “I gather things did not go well with Mrs. Doyle?”

  “They went even less well than I had feared. Amanda resented my b
eing there and went into a tirade, in front of Miriam. I won’t go into the whole thing. It’s too painful. But she threw me out of the house.”

  “That’s twice, now, isn’t it?” Alan took an experimental sip and put the cup down. Still too hot. “And once at the chapel. So are you ready to give up, yet?”

  “Almost. I really am almost ready to drop it, leave it to the police. But, Alan, there’s one thing that keeps eating at me.”

  “The child.”

  Alan knows me rather well. “Yes, the child. I’m worried about her, and I feel sorry for her. She’s become the parent, here. You should have seen her just now, trying to calm her mother down. It was pathetic. But there’s more.” I sipped the tea myself. Too hot. Alan waited.

  “Alan, I think that Amanda thinks Miriam did it.” There. I’d said it. Now let the chips fall where they might.

  “Yes,” he said. “Ahh,” he said, testing the tea again, “just right. Yes, I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. I thought that might be it.”

  “You mean—you thought of Miriam—”

  “My dear, she was there. I’m a policeman. I’ve seen nearly everything over the course of my career, and never rule out any possibility. Of course I thought of her.”

  “Then that means Derek—”

  “Derek, too, has almost certainly thought of her. We haven’t discussed it.”

  I tried to digest this. If the police suspected Miriam, as well as her mother … “They haven’t done anything about it. Questioned Miriam, I mean, or anything like that.”

  “Oh, they’ve talked to her, of course. I doubt she knew she was being questioned. We are trained for this sort of thing, you know, love. A policewoman—they always use women with children—will have made conversation with Miriam, subtly extracted her story of what happened that night. Evidently they found nothing particularly alarming. Now suppose you tell me why you think she did it.”

  “I didn’t say I think so. I said her mother thinks so.”

  “Very well. Tell me what evidence you have of the mother’s belief.”