An Uncommon Murder

by Anabel Donald

  ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘I like it.’

  ‘But how do you get so much?’

  ‘I put the question to every woman I meet over thirty and under sixty.’

  ‘And if they say no?’

  ‘I wait, a bit, then put the question again. And I always say thank you nicely.’

  ‘Even if it’s terrible?’

  ‘No such thing as terrible sex. How about it, Alex?’

  ‘No, thanks, Eddy. I’m not thirty yet.’

  ‘I’ll be back to you. What else can I do you for?’

  I explained, fetched him another pint, explained some more. He kept watching the blonde. I could only tell he was listening to me from his questions. ‘Right,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll give you a bell, let you know. Now bugger off, I’ve important matters in hand. I hope.’

  There was still no message from Lally and when Miss Potter arrived for supper she spent ten minutes fretting about Toad. Then she made a social effort, and said she liked my flat: she ate lasagne, praised it, refused yoghurt, accepted an apple which she dealt with precisely, the unbroken peel curling round her neat fingers. After supper she sat in her usual upright posture on my Sunday Times special offer sofa, legs crossed at the ankle and tucked away to one side, hands folded in her lap. She wore a good tweed skirt, thick woollen stockings, a blue sweater in what looked like cashmere and a darker blue silk scarf folded round her neck and fastened with a hammered silver brooch. Her thick grey hair, usually carefully scraped back and gathered into a high bun, was tonight in a looser bun at the nape of her neck. Seventy or not, I’d have bet Ready Eddy would’ve had a go. I wished I could see it.

  I still didn’t tell her I’d seen Stephanie Forsythe: I wanted to listen to the tape a few more times and work out some killer questions. I just kept topping her up with cheap wine and let her talk about the Sherwins. ‘Charlotte was a thoroughly unpleasant child. Penelope, on the other hand, is delightful. Such a pity you haven’t time to meet her. She may very well have important background information. She’s much too sensitive: utterly ill-equipped for life in this, or any other, society. It is very fortunate that she was cushioned by circumstances. She married a bluff, kind man and worried over her children’s schools. Now she reads books, and dreams.’

  ‘Haven’t you talked to her about the murder yourself?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘I expect Rosalind will be useful,’ I said, fishing. As always, the name upset her. She went pink and her lips trembled. ‘I’ve got her phone number but nobody’s answered yet. She lives in Crete. I got the impression she’d been there for a while.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ she said, shocked. ‘In Crete?’

  ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘I don’t suppose it does, now. It’s rather ironic. After – Lord Sherwin’s death, I resolved never to see her or speak about her again. Accordingly, I avoided the places where she might reasonably have been found.’

  ‘What places?’

  ‘Kenya, of course. London, as you know.’

  ‘And you never went back to Kenya either?’ That must have been a real sacrifice. She had a crush on the place.

  ‘Never,’ she said. ‘I was quite sure that a complete break between us was necessary.’

  ‘For her sake?’

  ‘Mainly.’ Entirely for Rosalind’s sake, I’d guess, if she could still upset Miss P. so completely. And she’d given up Kenya. I hoped it would turn out to have been worth it.

  ‘What did Rollo’s death have to do with her?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can answer you directly.’

  ‘Answer me indirectly then.’

  ‘It started, I suppose, in Kenya. In 1958. When I received the letter from Laura. I’d hoped that Rosalind would attend a local white school for her. A levels, go to England for her medical training, then return to Kenya and make her home there. I would meanwhile seek employment in Kenya, as governess or teacher. There were possibilities. I was determined to remain accessible to Rosalind as long as she needed me. I was, effectively, the family she knew.’

  ‘What did Laura say in her letter?’

  ‘Perhaps I will show it to you, one day. I never look at it, myself I don’t need to. Several of the phrases burnt themselves into my memory at first reading.’

  I poured more wine. ‘Just give me the gist.’

  ‘The gist was that Laura needed a governess for her own children and it was time that Rosalind returned to civilisation and rid herself of me. It was a warning to me, not to presume on my position, not to cling to Rosalind, not to seek to preserve an inappropriate intimacy.’

  ‘Was the intimacy inappropriate?’

  ‘I did not believe so. Further acquaintance with Laura led me to the view that, to her, all intimacy was inappropriate and distasteful, including that between husband and wife or mother and child. But at the time her letter had a profound effect on me.’

  ‘It cut you off from Rosalind.’

  ‘It led me to undue caution. It led me to distrust my motives and my judgement. It led me to refuse confidences from Rosalind, with tragic results. But it would not be fair to place all the responsibility for my attitude to Rosalind on Laura’s intervention. It went deeper than that, To a certain extent, I suppose it would be true to say that I lost my faith.’

  ‘Your faith in God?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Miss Potter. ‘My faith in maps.’

  ‘Maps? I love maps. You can find out where you are and where everything else is-in relation to you; then you can plan how to get there without hanging round, waiting for other people to give directions.

  ‘I am speaking metaphorically, referring to the map you are given by your parents during your upbringing. Their view of the world, how it is ordered and arranged, and how you should make your way through it. I’m sure it’s necessary for you to understand, Alex. It is important to me that you do.’

  ‘So you felt you’d wasted your time, looking after Rosalind? Or being a governess at all?’

  ‘Not wasted my time, precisely. Perhaps I felt . . .’

  ‘Unappreciated? By Laura?’

  ‘Again, not precisely. I would not, in any case, have valued Laura’s appreciation. No. I was disappointed in Rosalind.’

  ‘Rosalind in England?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because of the affair she was having with Patrick Revill?’

  ‘I have already told you, that’s impossible.’

  ‘What then? Why were you disappointed in her?’

  She got up and began clearing supper away, stepping over and around me in the confined space, then moving into the kitchen. I heard a gasp and the sound of plates clattering on the table. ‘Something wrong?’ I said, joining her. She was gazing at the beach photograph of Rosalind on my project board.

  ‘She looks so unhappy,’ she said.

  Now was the time to push. ‘She must have been very lonely.’

  ‘I fear she was. She found a friend in Stephanie Paxton, of course. And she became very fond of Penelope.’

  ‘Penelope was a child.’

  ‘Children can be comforting companions,’ she said in a tone which, in a lesser woman, would have been wistful. Her gaze had shifted to Rollo, I noticed. ‘I believed, at the time, I was acting in Rosalind’s best interests. Looking back, I see how distressed she must have been.’

  Stephanie had said Rosalind was especially miserable in Wales, I remembered. With Laura, and the little girls – but she hadn’t mentioned Miss Potter.‘When was that photograph taken?’ I asked.

  ‘August 1958.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I was at Ashtons Hall. With Colonel Farrell. The Crisps were on holiday.’

  ‘Where was Lord Sherwin?’

  Miss Potter blushed, and I decided to go for it. ‘Miss Potter, did you ever sleep with him?’

  Chapter Eleven

  I didn’t think she’d He, I expected her to evade, but she didn’t.

  ‘No,’ she said.
>
  ‘Nearly?’

  ‘That is hard to answer.’ She sat at the kitchen table and I fished out another bottle of wine from the cupboard under the sink. She’d have to drink this one at room temperature and like it. ‘You are right, of course, that Lord Sherwin did not go to Wales with his wife and children. However, he was away in Scotland for much of the time.’

  Silence. ‘But he came back?’ I prompted, and pushed a full glass towards her.

  ‘Yes. Late one evening. Colonel Farrell had gone to bed. I was in the library, reading. While Lady Sherwin was away I had the freedom of the house.’ Pause. I didn’t know whether to prompt her again. When the pause lasted too long, I did.

  ‘And Lord Sherwin came in?’

  ‘Yes. I heard his voice, calling through the house for his wife. He never remembered arrangements. I answered, and explained that the family were still away. He was pleased. He offered me a drink. He had been drinking.’

  ‘Much?’

  ‘Not excessively, but enough to be expansive with me. He had forgotten my name, again. He always called me “Miss Um”. That night, he also called me “Miss Mouse”. I made an attempt to get away. Not a very serious one. I reminded him of my name and accepted a drink. We talked.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘He complained about Lady Sherwin. He spoke of plans to divorce her, sell the estate and move to Kenya. He spoke of his children. He referred to them as “the rabbits”. He asked if I had ever noticed that blonde-haired children have pink noses. Then he asked me questions. About my life, my ideals. He asked me to tell him the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me, and if I had ever been in love.’

  ‘A chat-up line? He was making a pass at you?’

  ‘I must suppose so. I thought so at the time.’

  ‘But you didn’t respond?’

  ‘I had nothing to say that he would understand.’

  ‘You could have told him about Joss Erroll,’ I said, half-serious.

  She disregarded me.‘He said being a governess must be a crashing bore. I said it was often very fulfilling, and he laughed.’

  ‘Were you angry, when he laughed?’

  ‘Not exactly. I felt diminished, perhaps. He asked me why I’d never married. I couldn’t answer.’

  ‘It was because of Rosalind, really, wasn’t it?’ I wanted to give her a face-saving out. It sounded as if Rollo’s seduction method was to reduce the object of his attentions to chopped liver.

  ‘Partly,’ she said. ‘Only partly. I did have offers . . . I was waiting for a real man.’

  ‘What’s your idea of a real man? Someone like Erroll?’

  ‘Lord Erroll was far beyond my expectations. Someone like Rosalind’s father, perhaps.’

  ‘Did he make a pass at you, too?’

  ‘No, no, you misunderstand me. Mr. Sherwin was a devoted husband. Loving. Loyal.’

  ‘And attractive, like his brother Rollo?’

  ‘Physically, very like Lord Sherwin.’

  ‘Did Lord Sherwin kiss you?’

  ‘Gently. On the forehead.’ Her voice was soft, as she remembered.

  Cream to soothe the chopped liver, I thought. Women were hopeless. Seventy years of potential; looks, brains, courage; and one of her high points is a drunken pass from a cheap goat like Rollo.

  ‘Did he move down from the forehead?’

  ‘No. I retired to my room, at that point. I was left with the distinct impression that I had received an offer which I could have accepted at a later date. What the Americans, I believe, call a “raincheck”.’

  ‘And did you cash it in?’

  ‘I have already told you. I did not sleep with Lord Sherwin.’

  ‘So you have.’

  ‘That is what happened,’ she said, and adjusted her scarf. ‘Thank you for a delightful supper, my dear. May I help you with the washing-up?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it.’

  She ignored me. ‘Much better to have a clean kitchen in the morning.’

  ‘Better still to stop running away from your bogeymen. Get it over with. Give me the information you have about the murder. Nothing is as bad as you fear it’ll be.’

  ‘Come, my dear, even at your age you must have learnt that frequently things are even worse.’

  ‘Not with the adrenalin rush.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The excitement. The thrills. You know, when you’re afraid. Like parachute-jumping. Fight or flight. It’s adrenalin. I worked on a programme about it last year.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Miss Potter, through washing-up noises. ‘But what happens when the rush subsides?’

  ‘You pick up the pieces.’

  She left me with a very clean kitchen and a little to look forward to. Maybe I was nearer to gaining her confidence, but judging from that evening’s performance, her revelations would be only tangentially related to my article. Unless I was missing something. There’d probably been more genteel hanky-panky with Rollo, though I was inclined to believe her direct statement that he hadn’t bedded her. She’d have been too much like hard work for him, probably. Psalms among the pillows. Not enough, anyway, to fuel a crime passionnel, which in any case she couldn’t have committed because then she couldn’t have had a hold over Laura.

  But why had Laura’s suggestions of unnatural intimacy with Rosalind upset Miss Potter so much? It wasn’t as if they were true. Joss Erroll, Rollo, Michael Sherwin – even Miss Potter’s fantasies were heterosexual. I could see that someone of her generation might find it appalling to be gay, or even to be considered so, but enough to separate herself from the child she’d effectively adopted? And why had Laura made the suggestions at all? Just out of random malice? An easy poisoned dart to aim at a spinster governess?

  I added to my action/question list.

  ? who/why wanted Miss P. Ros back from Kenya? why then?

  ? Rollo need to sell estate if divorce? who’d mind?

  ? why divorce, finally? – true love for Rollo? who?

  Later, I lay in my own bed in my own flat under my own duvet, too light for winter because when I’d bought it new I hadn’t been able to afford a high tog one, and counted my blessings, as Miss Potter would undoubtedly have put it. Everything in my flat except the books had been bought new, even if it was not solidly made – I preferred first-hand to good workmanship. Everything was my choice, paid for by my money. I needn’t be grateful to anyone for their official or unofficial generosity, and I needn’t waste time appreciating it, or repay them by listening to their opinions, or dressing as they liked, or behaving as they chose.

  I comforted myself like this quite often anyway, but was probably doing it now because Miss Potter’s company set my personality rocking. It was so hard not to feel sympathy for her, and I couldn’t afford to. If you feel too much for the hopeless cases, eventually you become drained, a hopeless case yourself I was sure her secret would be sad and small and wouldn’t comfort her. In her position, homeless, penniless, what could?

  Homeless people. Homesick people. On this assignment, I kept coming across them. Long ago before the war. Miss Potter’s mother, dreaming of Simla and, I supposed, the chance to make another decision, choose a different life with a different man. Rosalind and Miss Potter at Ashtons that summer, longing for Kenya. Farrell, wanting a place of his own. Rollo, wanting to leave.

  The children must have been different. A country house childhood with an unloving mother, a casual father, a succession of governesses falling like skittles for a little touch of Rollo in the night: that would lead, surely, to a devotion to the house itself, their bedrooms, their dogs and ponies, the old boxes of dressing-up clothes, the trees they climbed, the view they woke to, the security the house gave them.

  I still couldn’t sleep. I poked my feet into the cold air of my bedroom, waggled my toes and thought about Laura’s treatment of Rosalind. First she left her only sister’s child to be brought up, thousands of miles away, by a governess. Then, when the child final
ly came back to her family, presumably hoping for a normally affectionate welcome, Laura sniped at her until Rosalind, lonely, voluntarily took up with Revill.

  A callous, selfish, idle woman, Laura. Perhaps even cruel.

  Which reminded me of something my mother once said. You’ll have gathered that she was not generally a source of words to guide your life by, but this particular observation had stuck with me. Our tower-block neighbour was a flinty-mouthed woman who beat her children to teach them discipline, and wouldn’t let them associate with me because I was ‘common’. I’d cried about that, once, when I was about four, and Mum said, ‘You’re not common, Alex. She’s common. It’s dead common to be cruel.’

  Common or not, murderer or not, Laura Sherwin was dead and I still had no angle for my piece. Nor was I getting anywhere in my quest for Toad.

  The window was open, and I could see my breath drift and dissipate in the acid glow of the street light outside. I wished I could plug in to Miss Potter’s mind, now. She wouldn’t be sleeping either. She’d be too upset. She’d be going over her memories and some of them would be useful to me.

  Chapter Twelve

  I’d set the alarm for six. Greek time was two hours later than GMT: not many people are up and out by eight, and I was determined to get Rosalind before she left her house, which I imagined as one of the dazzling white cliff-side villas featured in Cretan holiday brochures. I grabbed a double-strength mug of coffee and took the phone back to bed by street-lamp light. Her phone rang and rang, the continental single tone mocking me with missed opportunity. Probably her blasted husband had died and she was flying his body back to England for burial, too upset to talk. I was so convinced there’d be no answer that it took me a while to realise that an English, woman’s voice was saying, ‘Hello? Hello? Hello?’