Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle

by Pam Weaver

  The door burst open and PC Connelly came back into the room. ‘Whoops-a-daisy,’ he cried. ‘Forgot me pen.’ He smiled at Dottie and added, ‘Now don’t forget, if you remember anything else, just give us a shout.’

  John headed towards the door with him, knowing full well that the pen had been left as an excuse to check on whether there was anything between Dottie and him. For a while he’d better keep up the pretence.

  ‘I hope you make a full recovery, Mrs Cox,’ he said stiffly.

  The policeman held the door open for him to pass.

  Dottie stared at the closing door, then lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  Outside in the corridor, John fell into step with the two policemen.

  ‘When do you plan to talk to Patsy?’ he asked.

  ‘As soon as we’ve got her father over here,’ said the sergeant. ‘She’ll probably feel a lot safer with a relative.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said John. All three men stopped walking. ‘Look,’ John went on, ‘I’m not one to cast aspersions, but I think Mr Cox may know more than he lets on.’

  The sergeant gave him a strange look. ‘And perhaps Mrs Cox does too, sir.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ John protested. ‘You saw how pleased she was that Patsy had survived. I tell you, she loves that child.’

  ‘Tell me, Doctor,’ said the sergeant. ‘How close are you and Mrs Cox?’

  ‘We’re friends, that’s all,’ John insisted.

  ‘Could it be that she wanted more?’ the sergeant suggested. ‘Patients fall for their doctors all the time. Unrequited love is a very powerful thing.’

  ‘It’s not like that at all.’ John went cold. ‘And I can tell you now that you’re barking up the wrong tree, Sergeant.’

  ‘We’ll see, Doctor. We’ll see.’

  They parted somewhere near the front entrance. On his way out, John passed a petite blonde woman carrying a large bunch of flowers.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said exuding a waft of cheap perfume. ‘Could you tell me the way to the women’s ward?’

  ‘Down the corridor, and turn left at the top of the stairs,’ said John.

  The woman smiled. ‘Thank you. Much obliged, I’m sure.’

  ‘Peaches!’

  Dottie was walking down the ward between two nurses because she had asked to go to the toilet rather than have a bedpan.

  Peaches followed them all into her room and waited until the nurses had put her back into bed. As soon as they were alone, the two friends embraced warmly.

  ‘Oh, Peaches,’ said Dottie tearfully. ‘I was having a baby, but I’ve lost it.’

  Peaches was shocked. ‘Oh, Dottie, how awful.’ She hesitated. ‘But I didn’t think you and Reg … No, no, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I have never been unfaithful to Reg,’ Dottie said stoutly.

  Peaches squeezed her hand. ‘Of course you haven’t and I wouldn’t suggest anything of the sort. Oh, Dottie, I’m so sorry about the baby.’

  A nurse bustled in with the tea trolley and to Dottie’s delight, Peaches was allowed to have one too.

  ‘How’s Gary?’

  ‘He’s doing really well,’ said Peaches, pulling up a chair and sitting down. ‘He has to keep on with the exercises. Jack’s much better at it than I am. Gary gets a bit cross about it and as you know, I’m not very patient, but his leg is getting stronger all the time.’ As she relaxed in the chair, Dottie smiled at her friend. She was looking really good. She’d regained her figure after the baby and she’d obviously taken great care with her clothes. She was wearing a pretty tangerine twinset, a colour which suited her very well.

  ‘I wish you could have brought Mandy with you,’ sighed Dottie. ‘I still haven’t seen her.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry.’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ Dottie asked when the nurse had gone.

  ‘Jack,’ said Peaches. ‘He was doing a run to Worthing station and overheard Marney talking and, of course, you’re in all the papers.’

  ‘The papers?’

  ‘Only no one realised it was you,’ said Peaches. She held out her hand, headlining, ‘Mystery woman and child in gas tragedy.’

  Dottie pursed her lips.

  ‘Oh, Dottie, I’m an idiot,’ said Peaches. ‘Listen to me prattling on … me and my big mouth. How is Patsy? Has she said anything?’

  Shaking her head, Dottie reached for her handkerchief, wet from use. Peaches fished in her handbag and gave her a clean one. Dottie blew her nose. ‘I’m not allowed to see her. Can you find out how she is? I’m so worried about her.’

  ‘Of course, darling,’ said Peaches. ‘I’ll go and see her on my way home. It’s the least I can do.’

  As Dottie grasped her hand in gratitude, Peaches chewed her bottom lip.

  ‘You know something else, don’t you?’ said Dottie. ‘Tell me, Peaches.’

  ‘I don’t like to say …’

  ‘Tell me … please!’

  Peaches lowered her head and stared at her own hands. ‘The papers say you had something to do with what happened to Patsy.’

  ‘But that’s not true!’ cried Dottie. ‘The windows were all boarded up on the inside. I couldn’t break them …’ She was becoming agitated. ‘Peaches, Reg left us there but I don’t remember why. And when I smelled gas, I couldn’t get us out.’ She broke off and stared at Peaches wide-eyed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dottie. I wish I didn’t have to tell you,’ said Peaches gripping her hand. ‘But, darling, Reg is telling everyone you did it on purpose.’

  Forty-Three

  ‘If you ask me, they’ll do her for attempted murder,’ said Kipper.

  ‘But we both know Reg Cox is lying,’ said John angrily. ‘Lying through his teeth.’

  John had gone over and over everything again and again. There was something wrong with the story Reg was putting about but, no matter how hard he tried, it eluded him. The suspicions raised by Ernest Franks were still being checked out. The military moved very slowly.

  ‘You may be right, Dr Landers,’ said Kipper, ‘but the law says, and I quote, ‘If an attempted suicide failed, but killed someone else instead, by the doctrine of transferred malice, they are guilty of murder.’ Nobody died in this incident, but it looks as if Dottie was responsible for what happened to Patsy.’

  They were sitting in the police house in front of a roaring fire. The room itself was masculine, with none of the prettiness that comes with a feminine touch, but it was neat and tidy: a room with a place for everything and everything in its place.

  John had just come back from Eastbourne and, although it was out of office hours, Kipper had invited him in to share ‘a spot of whisky’ after his long journey. John was pleasantly surprised to find that he liked Kipper a great deal. He was a thinker and maybe a tad slow to make judgements, but he was fair and he was candid.

  ‘My God,’ John breathed. ‘You mean they’d actually do that? Accuse her of attempted murder?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Kipper. ‘Look, I don’t believe she’s a killer any more than you do but all we’ve got in our favour is purely circumstantial evidence.’

  ‘Dottie says someone tampered with the tap,’ said John. ‘Doesn’t that prove something?’

  ‘She could have done it herself.’

  ‘And the boarded-up windows?’

  ‘They’ll say she planned it.’

  ‘Surely you can’t argue about the door being locked from the outside? How could she have done that?’

  ‘The key was on the floor,’ said Kipper. ‘There is a theory that she locked the door and then pushed the key under the door.’

  John frowned. ‘Even so, you think differently.’

  ‘I was too hasty when the well caved in,’ said Kipper, knocking out his pipe against the hearth. ‘I’m just a country copper, not a detective, but if I’m to get Worthing Central to take note, I’ll have to have more than feeling and hearsay. I need good hard evidence. Ernest Franks knew the
truth but that blow to the head scrambled his brain as well.’

  John frowned. ‘Ernest Franks?’

  ‘He said that Reg was in the house the day Bessie Thornton died.’

  John gasped and then smiled broadly. ‘Arrest him, arrest him now!’

  Kipper reached for his tobacco pouch. ‘I can’t. He died before I could get a signed statement and I’m not sure it would have been much use anyway, given the circumstances.’

  John groaned and they lapsed into a troubled silence.

  ‘I knew Reg was up to no good from the word go,’ said John. ‘I was watching his face when we told him his wife was alive in that office and it was obvious that he knew far more than he was letting on.’

  ‘He’s a slippery one, I’ll grant you that, but what have we got so far?’ Kipper went on. ‘According to him, he was a devoted father, but she was a woman who found it hard to adjust to a fully grown child in the family …’

  ‘More likely the other way around,’ John retorted.

  ‘He takes them off on holiday,’ said Kipper, putting the tobacco pouch down on the table, ‘and she walks out of the hotel. Hours later, she’s drugged the child and gassed them both.’

  ‘You knew she was having his baby, didn’t you?’

  Kipper looked away. ‘I knew she was pregnant, but was it her husband’s child, that’s the burning question.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ John demanded.

  ‘There’s some talk that the baby was yours.’

  ‘Mine! But that’s ridiculous. Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘You’ve been seen in the company of Mrs Cox,’ said Kipper earnestly. He leaned forward in his chair. ‘Often and alone.’

  ‘I’ve only ever been with her when Patsy was around,’ said John truthfully. ‘Anyway, who saw me? Where?’

  ‘I am not at liberty to say, but the gossip in the village is rife,’ said Kipper, relaxing back in his chair. He began pushing the tobacco down in his pipe, reluctant to tell him that Gerald Gilbert and Vera Carter had come to him with stories of car rides, late-night lifts and walks along the seafront. And although Dr Fitzgerald assured him that Dottie was the soul of discretion, Mariah Fitzgerald considered that she had changed recently from a hard-working woman into a liability, and Janet Cooper was on the verge of giving her the sack. It seemed that her relationship with John Landers was the catalyst.

  ‘Can I speak candidly?’ said John.

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘I won’t deny that I have strong feelings for Dott … Mrs Cox,’ said John. ‘But she and I have never … that is to say … She has always remained absolutely faithful to her husband.’

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ Kipper said, striking a match. ‘I believe you.’

  John pressed his lips together and nodded. ‘Just tell me what evidence you need to prove her innocence,’ he went on, ‘and I’ll make sure you get it.’

  ‘She talked about a hired car,’ Kipper puffed, ‘but nobody saw it, and Reg says he can’t drive. And who wanted to buy that bungalow? She says he did, but the estate agent says he spoke to a woman on the telephone. Did Dottie write that suicide note? It certainly looks like her handwriting. And all that nonsense with the chickens. What was that all about? There was no way the fox got those birds, yet Reg was adamant.’

  ‘Reg was obviously lying,’ John observed.

  ‘Precisely, and while you’re on the subject, ask her again about her aunt’s death.’

  ‘Good God, you’re not suggesting …’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything, Dr Landers,’ said Kipper. He flicked the rest of the match into the fire and chewed the end of his pipe thoughtfully. ‘And another thing, there’s apparently some question about the true identity of her husband. You obviously did some checks on Mr Cox when you agreed to Patsy coming here. Did you come across anything?’

  ‘I’m afraid we were governed by our hearts and not our heads as far as Sandy was concerned,’ said John, grim-faced. ‘This is really serious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Dr Landers, it is,’ said Kipper. ‘You and I may dismiss all this as hearsay and innuendo, but the Eastbourne police believe they have a watertight case.’

  After his evening with PC Kipling, John had returned to his mother’s house. The first thing next morning, he’d arrange an interview with the Eastbourne estate agent (he felt it better to talk to the man in person) and then he’d tackle finding the hire car.

  Laura Landers had been devastated when he’d told her what had happened.

  ‘I refuse to believe that that lovely girl would ever do anything to harm that child,’ she’d said stoutly, ‘or herself for that matter. And believe you me, I am an excellent judge of character.’

  They’d reached the middle of December before they’d had their first really cold snap. There was even talk of snow coming. John and his mother were relaxing over a sherry before Sunday lunch when there was a knock at the door. Minnie, who had been stretched out before the log fire, leapt up and ran barking into the hallway. John went to open the door.

  ‘Dr Landers?’ The woman on the doorstep was elegantly dressed in a cream coat with a fur trim. ‘You don’t know me but I’m a friend of Dottie’s. My name is Sylvie McDonald.’

  John stepped back, holding the door wide open. ‘Come in. Dottie has told me all about you.’ As she raised her eyebrow, he laughed, adding, ‘All good, I assure you.’

  She walked in, peeling off her gloves, and he showed her into his mother’s sitting room. The delicious smell of roast lamb pervaded the whole house and Sylvie began to feel quite peckish.

  ‘This is my mother, Laura Landers,’ he said, introducing them both. ‘Mother, this is Dottie’s friend, Sylvie McDonald.’

  ‘Come in, my dear,’ said Laura struggling to her feet. ‘Sit down. Can I get you a sherry?’

  John took Sylvie’s coat. ‘I’ll get it, Mother.’

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ said Sylvie, patting the back of her hair, ‘but I really need to talk to you.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ said Laura, ‘I’d better check the roast.’

  ‘This whole thing with Dottie is driving me mad,’ said Sylvie as John’s mother left the room. She flung herself into a chair and crossed her elegant legs while Minnie flopped on Sylvie’s foot, waiting for a stroke.

  ‘I’ve been hoping it will all blow over,’ said John. ‘I’ll be seeing Dottie, probably tomorrow. I have to go to Eastbourne, and I’m hoping she’ll be well enough to come home by then.’

  ‘Are you aware,’ she went on, ‘that the Eastbourne police are planning to arrest Dottie as soon as she’s well enough?’

  John was conscious of his mouth dropping open. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  ‘My husband has friends in high places.’

  ‘Do you know the charge?’

  ‘Attempted murder.’

  ‘So it really has come to this.’ He sank into his chair, his face ashen.

  ‘Sadly, yes,’ said Sylvie.

  Laura came back from the kitchen. ‘John? What’s wrong?’

  Sylvie explained.

  ‘And they have enough evidence?’

  Sylvie shrugged. ‘It’s her word against his and for some reason, the Eastbourne police seem to be more inclined to believe him. The thing is, Doctor, I should like to enlist your help.’

  ‘We’re just about to have lunch,’ said Laura. ‘Would you …?’

  ‘Love to,’ beamed Sylvie.

  Laura made an extra place at the table.

  ‘I was horrified to see the state she was in when I got to the hospital,’ said Sylvie as they sat down together. ‘The sister wouldn’t let me in but when she’d gone off-duty, I managed to twist the staff nurse’s arm. The others had to wait in the car.’

  ‘Others?’ said Laura.

  ‘I took her friends with me, Ann Pearce, Mary Prior and Edna Gilbert,’ Sylvie explained. ‘They’d brought her presents and fruit. Everyone is very upset about Patsy b
ut none of us can believe that Dottie could be in any way responsible.’

  ‘I was just saying exactly the same thing to John,’ said Laura, warming to Sylvie straightaway. ‘Peas?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘How did you find out where I lived?’ asked John. He liked Sylvie’s direct manner.

  ‘From Mary Prior. Dottie told her all about you.’

  ‘We don’t want Reg to know where Dottie is,’ said Sylvie, taking the gravy with a nod of thanks. ‘So we’re going to spirit her out of hospital tomorrow. She’ll stay with Mary for one night and then I’ll get her back home with me.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’

  ‘The poor girl can’t even think straight at the moment,’ said Sylvie. ‘What Dottie needs now is a good long rest.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said John. ‘But why do you need me?’

  ‘We need to get her a change of clothes and she’s also asking for her aunt’s picture,’ said Sylvie. ‘I rather think it’s the one I gave her of me and Dottie and Aunt Bessie during the war. I had it enlarged and framed and gave it to her as a present for putting me up when Michael Gilbert got married.’ Sylvie paused for a mouthful. The thing is, everything is in the cottage and since Reg is going around saying he’ll have nothing more to do with Dottie, getting her stuff will be a bit awkward. The others won’t go and ask for it because they’re too scared of him so I have to be the one to help her. But Reg and I, well, let’s say there’s no love lost between us. I need to get in there, get her things and out without him knowing.’ She took another mouthful of the roast lamb. ‘This is absolutely delicious. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was.’

  ‘I need to talk to Reg about Patsy’s future,’ said John. ‘I feel obliged to make sure she’s in a safe place when she comes out of hospital. I’m not leaving her with someone who has made it clear from the start that he doesn’t want her.’

  ‘What will happen to Patsy now, John?’ Laura asked.

  John shrugged. ‘If Dottie is arrested, she’ll most likely end up in a children’s home.’

  Laura stopped eating. ‘Oh, John, we can’t let that happen!’