False Accusations: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide... (Willowgrove Village Mystery Book 1)

by Cora Harrison

  Jenny said nothing but her lips tightened slightly with exasperation. Flora didn’t blame her. Exasperation fought with pity every time she thought of Rosie.

  Rosie looked terrible; it was the first time that Flora had ever seen her with unwashed hair. The bounce and spring had gone from the blonde curls and the wild-rose colour had faded from her cheeks, leaving a white-faced girl with uncombed greasy hair hanging limply around her face.

  ‘Oh, Rosey-Posey,’ said Jenny, holding out her arms, ‘what ever possessed you to do such a stupid thing?’

  Perhaps it was the old pet name, or just the sight of her sister, but Rosie burst into tears. Her sobs were loud and hysterical, but her words were crystal clear.

  ‘I couldn’t help it, Jenny, she kept on slagging me off. I just had to shut her up. I just shoved a pillow over her mouth and finished her off.’

  Flora saw Sergeant Dawkins nod to P.C. Markham and she obediently wrote something into a notebook that lay open on the table in front of her. She checked her watch, made another note and Sergeant Dawkins crossed the room and added his signature and, with a glance at his watch, probably added date and time, as well.

  Rosie had, in the words of Jenny, afterwards, gone and done it again.

  For a moment Flora froze and then recovered herself.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Rosie,’ she said in sharp headmistress-like tones. And then to Jenny she said, uttering a slight laugh, ‘Do you remember the time when one of the boys played a trick on Benjamin Rice and swapped his size eight football boots for a tiny pair belonging to one of the infants?’

  Jenny took her up instantly. ‘I remember that. Do you remember, Rosie? You said that it was all your fault; that you washed Ben’s boots for him and they must have shrunk. It was so funny.’ She chuckled in a very natural fashion.

  All deeply unprofessional, thought Flora, as even the sergeant bit back a smile at this. Rosie blushed and dimpled, aware that Jenny was amused. Her mentors would be unhappy about this leading of a witness. Nevertheless, she said to herself, I’m in locus parentis and a good mother would bring up anything that would be of use to a child. The real story was that a trick had been played on both Rosie and Ben.

  In their last term in primary school Rosie, physically a year older than the others in her class, had begun to take a great interest in Benjamin Rice. He was a good-looking boy, tall for his age with nicely combed blond hair. Rosie decided to adore him. She was continually bringing him little presents, picking up his book when he dropped it, offering him a plaster for a cut knee, and even swamping his football boots with water as she held them under the tap and ineffectually tried to clean the mud from them with some dripping paper towels. He was furious; his boots were very important to him and everyone, as usual, rushed to protect Rosie from his wrath. After a good scrub with some saddle soap produced by a horse-riding teacher and a night in the boiler house, they were as good as new, but then someone, probably Jenny or Anthony, more likely both, decided to play a trick and swapped the boots, replacing his enormous pair with two tiny ones, taken from the infants’ classroom.

  ‘Now, if you don’t mind, Mrs Morgan, I would like to take Miss Trevor’s statement,’ said Sergeant Dawkins, with an exasperated glance at Rosie and a nod towards the door meant for his woman constable. He made a pretence of consulting his notebook. ‘Your date of birth, Miss Trevor, is July 1, 1973, is that correct? And you are eighteen years old?’

  ‘That’s correct,’ said Jenny gravely.

  ‘Shall I wait outside?’ Flora asked as Rosie, again rather tearful, was ushered out. The sergeant had looked across at her and was obviously waiting for her to go. She had no place at this interview. Jenny, at eighteen, and obviously not mentally deficient in any way, was deemed adult enough to be questioned by a police officer.

  ‘Perhaps you would wait with Miss Rosie Trevor,’ said Sergeant Dawkins, dismissively. ‘We won’t be long and then I would like to take another statement from her and I’m sure you will want to be present for that.’

  Paula, Flora remembered suddenly, had, on the day of the incident of the shrinking boots, had made a prophecy. Ladling coffee granules into two mugs to strengthen them to cope with the weekly delivery of post from the divisional education office, the school secretary had come out with one of her pronouncements.

  ‘That girl,’ she had said, ‘would confess to committing murder!’

  And now she had. Flora couldn’t ignore this latest evidence against Rosie. She had the teacher’s ability to read handwriting from an upside-down position and P.C. Markham’s was large, the note plainly headed with the underlined words: Spoken by Rosie Trevor to her sister in the presence of: and then followed a list of our names and after that those damning words: ‘I couldn’t help it, Jenny, she kept on slagging me off. I just had to shut her up. I just shoved a pillow over her mouth and finished her off.’

  These, undoubtedly, would be quoted in the court case if it came to that.

  This was the first time that despair began to creep insidiously into Flora’s mind as the police woman ushered herself and Rosie into a small waiting room. She had slept quite well the night before and had woken in a positive mood. I know Rosie, she told herself, but these police do not. Surely I can be persuasive enough, can project enough moral authority to convince the police Rosie’s first confession was just attention seeking and that when she withdrew it the following morning she was telling the truth.

  But now, in the presence of Sergeant Dawkins, Rosie had said: ‘I couldn’t help it, Jenny, she kept on slagging me off.’ Everything began to seem dark and dangerous. Flora was once more swept by that deep fear within herself that she would be found to be inadequate.

  ‘Rosie,’ she said, sitting down beside the girl and speaking in a clear teacher-like voice, ‘what you must do when we go back into the room again is to tell us exactly what happened yesterday.’ Flora glanced at the policewoman, but she had picked up a magazine and seemed to be purposely distancing herself from the conversation.

  ‘Yesterday?’ Rosie looked at her former teacher in a puzzled fashion. There was a cold feeling inside Flora. What would happen to a delicate, sensitive, innocent girl like Rosie if she were shut up in a prison, she wondered? Even another night at the police station could destroy her. She had hoped that with Jenny back Sergeant Dawkins would give bail; had planned to bring the two girls back to stay with her for a few days. Simon might be cheered by their presence. However, she now feared that he wouldn’t agree to that.

  His face had a determined look on it. He switched on the tape-recorder and said into it: ‘Interviewing Miss Rosie Trevor’ and then he gave the names of those present and the time and then the usual warning.

  ‘Shouldn’t Mr Bradley be present?’ Flora was trying to delve through the masses of information floating around in her mind from the two-week course that she had attended when she first took on this job. ‘Don’t worry,’ the mentors kept saying. ‘You are not there as a professional, just an appropriate adult, a substitute for a parent.’ Flora had never imagined a time when she would be sitting in a police office, her head aching, her heart thumping and a sick dread in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Miss Trevor, would you like Mr Bradley to be present?’ His voice was sour. He had wanted to get this matter sorted out for good. ‘Your solicitor,’ he added in response to her startled look.

  Rosie was looking at her teacher and Flora gave a very slight inclination of her head. Sergeant Dawkins, she thought, could not have faulted her expression. She knew what she was doing, though. And Rosie, the champion face reader, would interpret the signal of approval for that suggestion.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Rosie, smiling wanly at his grim face as he stood up and left the room. Flora wished that P.C. Markham would go too, but she had obviously had her instructions. She was reading her notebook, her eyes lowered so it was easy for Flora to give Jenny a quick nod and jerk of the head towards Rosie.

  ‘Rosie, you must stop talking nonsense,
’ Jenny said bravely to her sister.

  ‘I think it would be best if nothing were said about the crime for the moment until Sergeant Dawkins comes back,’ said P.C. Markham. ‘Perhaps you could tell Rosie about Majorca, would that be a good idea?’

  Rosie brightened up. ‘Start at the beginning,’ she commanded.

  Jenny gave a grimace but obediently started. ‘Well, I got up very early while you were still asleep.’

  ‘And Mum?’ asked Rosie brightly. ‘Was she still asleep?’

  A shadow passed over Jenny’s face and she clenched her hands slightly but spoke bravely. ‘No, Mum was awake when I peeped in and she came to the French window with me and … and she … she kissed me goodbye.’

  And then Jenny broke down and cried and Rosie cried too. And no more was said until Mr Bradley came in — followed by Sergeant Dawkins who immediately switched on the tape-recorder and once more said his usual preamble into it.

  He didn’t waste much time. He surveyed the two weeping girls with indifference and straightaway prepared to launch the question that was in everyone’s mind.

  ‘Rosie Trevor, you have the right to remain silent, but if you say anything it will be taken down and may be used in evidence.’

  He paused after that and Flora glanced at the solicitor. He made no signal, though, so she said nothing, although every instinct in her wanted to scream: ‘Don’t say anything, Rosie.’

  Jenny said it though. Her voice was broken with sobs and she was dabbing her eyes frantically with a screwed-up ball of tissue as she gasped, ‘Don’t tell him anything, Rosie. Don’t say anything.’

  Suddenly Rosie’s tears dried up. She stared at Jenny in a puzzled way. She had probably no memory of seeing Jenny cry. Flora scanned through the recollections of seven years ago but could find no memory of Jenny crying, not even when she was five years old and tears in any reception classroom are as frequent as mist on autumn mornings. Rosie was the one that cried and Jenny was the one who comforted her. Expressions of alarm and surprise flitted across Rosie’s pretty face.

  ‘Don’t cry, Jenny, you didn’t do anything. I did it. I’m the one that killed Mum, not you.’

  Chapter 12

  ‘I think he has to be allowed to question her,’ said Mr Bradley firmly when Jenny and Flora followed him into his office, so conveniently situated across the road to the police station. ‘You see, if we tell her to say nothing, she may not keep to it. She may forget and say something quite damaging. In any case, if she reserves her defence then we have no hope at all of getting the police to drop the case, and of course, of getting her out of there.’

  ‘Is there any hope of the police dropping the case?’ asked Jenny wearily. This time she had not bothered to renew her make-up; her face was blotched and her eyes were red.

  ‘I thought there might be, but now I’m not too sure.’ Mr Bradley sounded a little weary, also. I don’t suppose he had ever a client as troublesome as Rosie before, thought Flora. ‘However, the good thing is,’ he continued with a forced note of cheerfulness in his voice, ‘that Sergeant Dawkins has agreed that one or both of us, myself and Mrs Morgan, should be present when Rosie is questioned, and you know, the whole thing is so confused that I cannot see them getting a conviction on what I have written down. You can see that for yourself if you look through the notes.’

  He pushed them over to Flora.

  She began to make a list of inconsistencies and discrepancies; he himself had underlined most of them and she read them aloud as she went along.

  ‘One,’ she said. ‘If the murder took place at eight in the morning, or thereabouts, why did Rosie wait until almost eleven before phoning the TV station? If she wanted to claim it, why not straight away?’

  ‘That’s a very telling point.’ Mr Bradley nodded his grey head intelligently. ‘In fact, I think it may be our strongest point at the moment.’

  ‘Secondly, and as a follow-up to that, if Rosie did murder her mother, what did she do next?’

  ‘Went back to bed,’ suggested Jenny with a sort of grim hopelessness that made her sound twice her age. ‘Still,’ she said more hopefully, ‘for anyone who didn’t know Rosie, it would certainly sound a bit odd.’

  ‘And surely…’ Flora let the rest of her sentence drop. It rather hampered her that Jenny was there. She had wanted to ask about the degree of violence needed; wouldn’t Rosie have been in a very hyped-up, excitable state after a deed like this, was the way her thoughts were going.

  ‘I’d say that it would sound very unlikely to any jury that she went back to bed after committing a murder,’ she finished.

  Jenny had a tired, hopeless look about her. Jenny, Flora reminded herself, had lived with Rosie for eighteen years. No doubt she had seen her do the strangest things and show the oddest reactions on many occasion during that time. It was difficult to talk in front of her. By now Flora had accustomed herself to the death of Mrs Trevor and could discuss the details without any squeamishness; her daughter should not be expected to take the same detached attitude.

  ‘Jenny, you don’t look well,’ she said, looking at her with concern. ‘I wonder should I leave this and take you home for a cup of tea, or perhaps...’

  Mr Bradley rose to his cue. ‘I’m sure that my secretary will make her a lovely cup of tea. Come with me, Jenny and we’ll find her.’

  He gently and firmly ushered her out of the room and Flora went back to the notes, reading them silently until he returned a few minutes later.

  ‘There is something else, from the first interview.’ She was turning over pages as she spoke. ‘Here it is. Do you remember how Rosie said to me, her eyes were open; doesn’t that sound to you as if she were already dead?’

  ‘I think you are right.’ He studied the notes with a touching gravity. ‘I’m worried about this child, Flora. Unfortunately she’s a bit like a lemming; just when you think everything is going to work out, she rushes headlong into destruction. That’s was what she did today, saying that to her sister.’

  ‘Mr Bradley —’

  ‘Please, call me Ted,’ he interrupted.

  Flora smiled. ‘Ted, then, I suppose this is a medical question, not a legal one, but I was just wondering how much force you would need to smother someone with a pillow.’

  ‘How long would it take someone to die, do you mean?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that is what I mean.’

  ‘What’s in your mind, Flora?’ She was very aware that he was thoughtfully appraising her.

  ‘You see the thing about Rosie, apart from being a very gentle child; she is very lacking in confidence. I can just about see her killing someone by shooting a gun at them — one quick action and then it’s all over, but I can’t see her persisting if it took a long time or if her mother struggled, or anything like that. I think she would lose confidence in herself, wonder whether she was doing the wrong thing. It seems to be that you would only smother someone if you were a very determined person and very angry with them, especially if it takes more than a minute or so.’ She looked at the solicitor hopefully. Did he understand her point?

  ‘I seem to remember something about this in a case I was involved in — quite a long time ago. My client smothered a woman that he had been living with. He tried to say that it had been an accident, just a bit of love play that went wrong. The prosecution rather demolished that excuse. They pointed out that a fair amount of force would need to be applied over a certain period of time. Five minutes, I seem to remember the prosecution counsel saying — not more, probably, but not too much less. Both the barrister and I thought the client should have gone for a crime passionnel plea, but he was adamant that he would not do that. We both felt that he had probably discovered that the woman was cheating on him — this smothering bore all the signs of that. You need a fair amount of hate to smother someone. But there you are, you can only advise your client; the ultimate decision is his, or hers.’

  ‘Would Mrs Trevor have become unconscious quite quickly?’

&nbs
p; ‘Probably.’ He thought for a moment before saying: ‘I’m no expert, but I reckon that she would have been unconscious after a couple of minutes, depending on the pressure. Five at the most.’

  ‘I just can’t imagine Rosie persevering; five minutes is a very long time.’ Flora was conscious that her voice sounded rather hopeless. It was even difficult to convince herself that she was sure; so how could she convince someone like Sergeant Dawkins? The fact was, thought Flora that she couldn’t be sure — after all she had hardly had anything to do with this girl for the last seven years.

  ‘Would Rosie know the difference between someone unconscious and someone who was dead…?’ Ted stopped as footsteps sounded from the passageway outside. They both sat in silence until the door opened and Jenny came in with a mug in her hand.

  ‘What about mum’s pearl necklace? Has that turned up?’ Jenny was beginning to recover. Her colour was better and her eyes had lost that strange look.

  ‘No, but … excuse me.’ Ted lifted the phone that had buzzed, said his name and then listened carefully. ‘Yes, put him through.’

  Sergeant Dawkins, Flora thought. She wondered what the latest news was, feeling herself taut, stretched as tightly as a disputed skipping rope in the playground. She watched his face carefully.

  ‘I see,’ he said as he put down the phone and turned to her.

  ‘That was Sergeant Dawkins. He has a few important matters to tell us. One is that the time of death is now definitely set for between six and eight in the morning — probably nearer to six than to eight. Jenny’s evidence about the time of the last meal was very useful — time of death was estimated to be approximately twelve hours after that. Also, he again mentioned the significance of the fact that the pathologist found large traces of a bromide in Mrs Trevor’s stomach. Apparently she took sleeping pills. He wanted me to ask Jenny if she took them on a nightly basis or just occasionally. There was an almost full bottle in the drawer beside her bed.’