by Hazel Holt
“You’d like me to come with you?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course I’ll come. When?”
“Tomorrow if that’s all right with you.”
I don’t really know what I expected John Morrison’s house to be like – dour and forbidding, I suppose, full of large, dark furniture. But it wasn’t like that at all.
“John always left his spare key with me,” Nora said, letting us in. The house was not as large as Nora’s but like hers it was situated up a flight of steps, so that standing at the front door you had a wonderful view of the bay. I followed her inside and stopped in surprise. Stepping through the front door we found ourselves in a big, open-plan area whose large windows flooded the room with light. The whole effect was light and airy, white walls, modern furniture and thin, floating curtains. But, somehow, it wasn’t a feminine room, the furniture had strong, clean lines, for decoration there were large bronzes and the pictures were vibrant and exciting. The whole room, though, focussed on the windows. Through them was a constant reminder of the sea outside, its changing moods and unforgiving strength. Nora looked at me and smiled. “Not quite what you expected?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing like it,” I said, “I’m amazed. It’s really beautiful.”
“John was a very creative person,” Nora said, “he was imaginative in the way that some – a very few – scientists can be. He saw into the heart of things, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do,” I said, looking around the room.
“It needs a good dusting,” she said, “and I think I’d better air the place a bit.” She moved over and opened the windows wide, letting in a fresh cool breeze and that unmistakable salt smell of sea air. I followed her through a door into the kitchen. Again, everything was well thought out, with modern fittings and utensils.
“John enjoyed cooking,” Nora said. “He was very good at it and he said it relaxed him.”
We went back into the living area. “The study is upstairs,” Nora said and led the way up the polished open-tread wooden staircase to the upper floor. There were two rooms and a bathroom leading off a small landing. The study was the larger of the two rooms, at the front looking out over the sea. The walls were lined with white-painted bookshelves; there was a modern desk with a computer and various files spread out, and a large table by the window, which housed a microscope and other scientific apparatus. It was, in every sense of the word, a workroom and, because I knew its owner would no longer work there, it seemed particularly empty and desolate.
“He spent most of his time up here,” Nora said. “Working or just watching the sea.”
She walked over to the window and I followed. Although it was a sunny day there was a stiff breeze and the water was flecked with white. A small yacht was tacking towards the harbour, its sail keeling over as it came about. Standing there in that room, looking at that view, I felt for the first time I knew something of the sort of person John Morrison must have been and I understood just a little the immense loss Nora must be feeling.
As I turned away from the window I noticed a photograph on the desk; three young people in their early twenties. Two young men on either side of a girl, with their arms around each other, all bright, eager, full of life – John Morrison, Virginia, and Francis Wheeler. Nora’s glance followed mine.
“Yes, that was taken when they were at Medical school together. They were very close in those days. Actually Francis and John were friends first and, although Francis was very keen on Virginia himself, they remained friends for a long time after the marriage.”
“But not to the end?”
“No,” she said, “by the time Virginia went off with the man Sutton, Francis had gone to work in America.” She paused. “But there’d been a break-up between them before that. Something happened – John said, something unforgivable. He wouldn’t say what it was, but, it obviously upset him too much to talk to me about it.”
“Goodness. And how strange to think that they both ended up in the West Country. They must have come across each other at the hospital, after all Francis Wheeler comes down every fortnight to hold clinics there. Did John ever say anything about seeing him?”
Nora shook her head. “No, never. I must say I was surprised to see Francis at the funeral.” She picked up the photograph. “It was odd seeing him with Virginia.”
“Rekindling old fires?” I asked.
Nora laughed. “Oh no. Francis, I’m sure, isn’t going to risk his marriage to a young, rich wife with a useful father. She’s the only daughter of a fashionable London consultant. No, I can’t imagine why he was there.” She replaced the photograph on the desk. “Oh well, we’d better get on.”
John Morrison’s bedroom, at the back of the house overlooking a small walled garden, was, in contrast to the rest of the house, unremarkable. Plain walls, no pictures, the minimum of furniture – a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a double bed and a bedside table with a leather-bound book on it. Curious, I picked it up and said, “It’s a Bible.”
We looked at each other. “There’s something marking a place,” I said and opened the book.
It opened at the Epistles and my eye was caught by a pencilled line in the margin.
“‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’” I read. “St Paul to the Galatians. A son of the manse, you said?”
Nora nodded. “But I’d no idea he read the Bible.” I handed it to her and she read the passage. “I wonder what all that was about and who he meant.” She closed the book and replaced it on the bedside table.
“There’s a great text in Galatians…‘something, something it entails / Twenty-nine distinct damnations each certain if the other fails.’”
Nora looked at me in surprise.
“Browning,” I said, “but I can’t remember it properly. Oh, the awfulness of English literature – it leaves you with half-remembered tags, not even really relevant, but lying there ready to be triggered off!”
Nora looked down at the piece of paper in her hand. “Oh bother, I’ve lost the place.” She opened the Bible and leafed through it. “Does Galatians come before or after Ephesians? Oh there it is. Good heavens!”
She handed me the piece of paper that had marked the passage. It was a short note scribbled in pencil on a sheet torn from some sort of small pad. It simply said, ‘I’ve got to see you – I can’t bear this. Text me. PLEASE. J.’
We looked at each other and Nora said, “J or Jay? What was going on?”
“It sounds rather desperate,” I said. “That underlining scored right through the paper. And why would he keep it in his Bible?”
Nora shook her head. “I don’t understand, he never said anything…” Her voice trailed away. “He had a way of keeping difficult things to himself, but he usually told me about them in the end. Now,” she said sadly, “he never will.”
“Do you feel like coming to look at a garden?” Rosemary asked.
I looked at her enquiringly.
“The wife of one of Jack’s clients is opening her garden to the public for some good cause or other and I rather feel I ought to go.”
“Where is it and when?” I asked cautiously.
“On Saturday and this side of Tiverton. The forecast’s good and it’ll be a nice drive along the Exe Valley.”
“Yes, all right, I’d quite like to.”
The garden was, in fact, very nice, beautifully laid out and a riot of colour. Though the owner, who greeted Rosemary effusively was full of lamentations.
“It’s not what it should be – all that dreadful hot weather played absolute havoc and we were watering until all hours!”
“It looks lovely,” I said.
“Absolutely gorgeous,” Rosemary added.
“So kind, but I do wish you could have seen it last month…” She drifted away.
Rosemary and I looked at each other and laughed.
“Pure Ruth Draper!” I said
. “It does seem to be a timeless and universal thing!”
“The roses are gorgeous – just look at that Peace over there, the flowers are as big as cabbages, and the clematis! So unfair, my clematis just puts out one miserable flower at a time. How does one manage to get all the flowers to come out at once?”
We were wandering around the garden admiring the flowers and shrubs when Rosemary clutched my arm.
“Look,” she said, “There’s Janet Dobson with Lorna. Let’s go along this path and avoid them – I really can’t be doing with that woman.”
We edged behind some bushes and made our way to the lawn where tables had been set out and teas were being served.
“Are you going to have a cream or a plain?” Rosemary asked.
“Oh plain, I think, I had rather a large lunch.”
“It seems to be self-service,” Rosemary said, indicating the trestle table where two flustered women in aprons were trying to pour milk and tea, juggle cakes and give change simultaneously. We chose our cakes and took our cups of tea and I tried to pay for them both, which caused an agony of arithmetic on the part of one of the ladies.
“Both together, is it? Yes, well, if you can give me the 4p, then I can give you a pound, because I don’t seem to have any 50ps. Oh, thank you so much, if you’re sure – it is for a good cause after all!”
“I think you were wise to have the coffee sponge,” Rosemary said, when we had settled down at one of the few free tables, “this flapjack’s a bit chewy.”
“Do you mind if we join you?” Janet Dobson had come up behind us with a tray in her hand. “I thought I saw you earlier – I said to Lorna, I do believe that’s Rosemary and Sheila, quite a coincidence.”
Rosemary muttered something that might be taken for assent and I moved the other two chairs so that they could sit down.
“They’ve got a good crowd here,” Janet went on, “Of course we all like looking round other people’s gardens.” She laughed. “You can’t help being curious, can you?”
Lorna sat there looking morose and contributing nothing to the conversation. Janet turned to her daughter.
“Lorna dear, would you go and get me some sugar – I thought there’d be some on the table. Isn’t it awful – I know I should give up sugar in my tea, but I’ve never been able to manage it.”
Lorna got up and moved slowly away towards the trestle tables. Janet leaned forward and spoke confidentially. “I thought it might take her out of herself having a little trip out. She’s been really bad ever since – you know, the murder.”
“It must have been a dreadful shock for her,” I said, “finding Dr Morrison like that.”
“Oh yes,” Janet spoke almost enthusiastically, obviously enjoying the drama of it all, “a terrible shock. She hasn’t been right since. I made her come and stay with me, of course, it wasn’t fit for her to be on her own, and she’s been off work. In fact,” she leaned forward, “I wouldn’t be surprised if she never goes back there. Traumatised, that’s what Dr Macdonald says she is. He’s given her sedatives and so on, but I don’t think she’ll ever get over it.”
“How dreadful,” I said. “Dr Morrison wasn’t a popular man, but I can’t think why anyone should have wanted to kill him.”
“He was,” Janet said, looking over her shoulder as if afraid of being overheard, “a bit of a ladies’ man, so I’ve heard.”
“Really?” I asked. “I’d never have guessed it, he didn’t look the type.”
“Oh yes, a real dark horse. Lorna said he’d even made a pass at her – that was some time ago.”
“Good heavens!”
Lorna’s return with a bowl of sugar put an end to Janet’s confidences and Rosemary, who had taken no part in this conversation, said, “We really ought to go now, I have to be back by five.”
In the car going home Rosemary said, “That woman! Positively revelling in it all. And what was all that nonsense about Dr Morrison making a pass at Lorna – as if he would, well not at her!”
I told Rosemary about the stalking business. “So you see,” I said. “She’s obviously been fantasising about the whole thing – it’s all a bit sinister.”
“It certainly is. I always thought there was something peculiar about that girl. How awful for Dr Morrison. It must have been awkward, working together like that.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “he had it out with her and that tipped her over the edge and she killed him.”
Rosemary cautiously overtook a large tractor and trailer parked on a bend and said, “Well, you do hear of such things, though perhaps only in films and the more sensational Sunday papers. Still, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen in Taviscombe.”
“As far as I can see,” I said, “it’s more of a motive for murder than anything else I’ve heard of.”
“She did look awful,” Rosemary said. “Sort of haunted, if that’s the word I want.”
“I know what you mean,” I agreed. “Her mind was obviously somewhere else. She’s always been a bit sullen, but it was different today, she really didn’t seem to be with us.”
“Of course, it can’t help to have Janet Dobson for a mother, especially if you’ve got something on your mind. Can you imagine confiding in her!”
“In a way you have to feel sorry for her, Lorna I mean, being obsessed by something or someone – it must consume you, colour your whole life. I suppose it must have been like that for Lorna, and now he’s gone (whether she was the one who killed him or not) she must have a terrible emptiness. No wonder she’s acting oddly, her whole world must have been wrenched out of focus.”
“Well,” Rosemary said robustly, “I don’t want to be unfeeling, but I, for one, will be quite glad if she doesn’t go back to the practice – I mean, we don’t want anyone actually unbalanced arranging the appointments!”
When I got back I was still thinking of Lorna, turning over in my mind what Nora had told me about her hanging about outside John Morrison’s house. Even if he’d made a joke of it to Nora it must still have been worrying to know that a disturbed person (and she must surely be clinically disturbed) was stalking him. I wondered if he had told any of the other doctors about it – as a case study, perhaps, not naming names – if, indeed, anyone else apart from Nora knew about it.
Then there was Janet’s description of him as “a ladies’ man”. Had she been describing him like that from what Lorna had said, or was there other talk about him, at the surgery perhaps? Did anyone else know about Jay? What had happened there? The note in the Bible seemed to indicate that that particular relationship was over, ended, apparently by him.
“I can’t bear this” sounded desperate. Had Jay been superceded by someone else? If so, who?
The questions seemed endless and I hadn’t the faintest idea where to find the answers.
My thoughts were interrupted by a loud cry. Foss wished to tell me that he had come in and wasn’t it time some food was forthcoming. But when we got into the kitchen I remembered that I’d meant to cook his fish before I went out, but I’d left in a hurry and forgotten it.
“Oh Foss, I’m sorry. If you want something now you’ll just have to have dried food or a tin.”
I opened a tin for each of them and put their plates down. Foss sniffed suspiciously at his and looked up at me incredulously. “That’s all there is,” I said firmly. Tris, happy with any food, had already demolished his plateful and stood, his head on one side, watching hopefully, as Foss picked reluctantly at his food. Tris knew from experience that if he waited patiently he could clear up the remains that Foss had left as a protest.
I was standing smiling at the little scene played out, almost as a ritual, every few days when the telephone rang. It was Nora.
“Sheila.” She sounded breathless and upset. “Do you think I could come round? Something very peculiar’s happened and I’d like to talk to you about it.”
Chapter Twelve
When Nora arrived she seemed much more calm and collected.
�
�Come in and sit down,” I said. “What will you have, sherry or gin and tonic?”
“Oh, gin and tonic please. Sheila, I’m sorry to break in on your evening like this, I do hope I’m not messing up your plans. But the thing is, I’ve had a bit of a shock and I really wanted to talk to someone about it.”
“That’s fine. No plans at all. Just me and the telly. So what’s happened?”
Nora paused for a moment as if to gather her thoughts. “You know I told you that John’s solicitor was in London. Maurice Seaton. He’s my solicitor too; in fact he’s a friend as well as a solicitor. John and I have known him for ages, he’s really nice. Anyway. I had a letter from him today saying that, since I was a close friend of John, he thought I ought to know what was in his will, so he enclosed a photocopy.”
“Yes?”
“There were a couple of bequests to medical charities and a few things he left to me – some of his bronzes and pictures that he knew I liked, and the boat, because it had originally been my father’s. And he asked me to go through his papers and destroy anything I felt he would wish me to.”
Nora put her glass down and leaned forward. “John was really very comfortably off. He lived quite frugally – his only extravagances were books and the boat. And with property prices as they are I expect his house will fetch a fair amount.”
“Sure to,” I said, “especially in that position overlooking the bay.”
“So you see there’s quite a lot of money involved.”
“Are there any relatives?”
“Only some sort of cousin he hasn’t seen for years.”
“So?”
“He’s left the lot to Joanna Stevenson.”
“What!”
“Joanna. Jay. J.”
“Good heavens! So she was the woman…and you never suspected, he never mentioned her?”
“He may have done in passing, along with the other doctors in the practice, but, no, never. Never in any other way.”
