David Moore had been sure of the woman’s guilt at first sight of her terrified face, but he now decided that it was too early to make snap judgements, and that she was far too much of a lady to be a possible killer.
Mrs Wakeford carried in a tray. ‘Do you all take milk and sugar, gentlemen?’ She seemed to have recovered her composure a little.
‘No tea for me, Mrs Wakeford,’ Sergeant Black lifted his hat from the sideboard. ‘I’ll have to be getting back, but I’ll leave you in the inspector’s capable hands. Tell him everything you told me, and anything else that comes to mind.’
‘I’ll do my best, Sergeant Black.’
‘That’s right.’ He opened the door and went out.
Mrs Wakeford filled three cups and added the sugar and milk as indicated by the two detectives. ‘Would you care for a biscuit, or a scone, or something?’
She hovered over them until they smilingly refused before she took her own seat. ‘It’s Earl Grey,’ she confided. ‘I always use it. It’s much better than teabags.’
David Moore nodded intelligently, hoping that he wouldn’t disgrace himself by dropping the delicate rose-patterned cup and saucer, which appeared to be part of an old and valuable set.
The inspector looked round approvingly as he stirred his tea. The furniture and furnishings were of fine quality, and in very good taste. The place wasn’t overburdened with ornaments, either, just a few fine pieces here and there.
His turned to the woman sitting opposite him. Quite slim, with blue-rinsed hair beautifully coiffed, she wore a neat twinset with a single strand of pearls round her neck. Her well-cut tweed skirt and well-crafted suede shoes made him put her down as having a substantial income from some source or other, and her age would probably be between fifty-five and sixty.
He caught her timorous eyes and smiled. ‘This is much more friendly, better than being all stiff and formal, don’t you think? Shall we begin now, Mrs Wakeford?’
‘Yes, if you like.’ She relaxed a little, then asked, timidly, ‘Will what I say be taken down in writing?’
‘Some, but don’t think about it. It’s only to help us make up a picture of what has happened – a background, as you might say.’ Taking a mouthful of tea, he was pleased to find that it was a good strong brew. Some old dears made tea so weak it needed crutches to come out of the pot.
Mrs Wakeford took a dainty sip of hers, black with no sugar, then sat forward. ‘Janet Souter has been my neighbour for nearly thirty-five years,’ she began. ‘Ever since she came back to Tollerton from Edinburgh, and bought her cottage, though we were never very friendly. I mean . . .’ she looked confused. ‘We were on quite good terms, but we didn’t pop in and out of each other’s houses all the time, if you know what I mean?’
She paused to take another sip of tea, blotted her lips with a lace-edged handkerchief and looked across at McGillivray, who smiled encouragingly.
‘Very occasionally, she came in and had a cup of tea with me, or I went and had one with her, but usually only when she wanted to tell me, or ask me, something. And we went to the Women’s Guild meetings together every Friday night in the winters, because it seemed more sensible than each going on our own. She would tell me about her nephews sometimes, complaining about them mostly, because she didn’t think very much of them.’
‘Why was that?’
‘She said they couldn’t run their businesses properly, and that their wives weren’t much help.’
‘She didn’t think much of their wives either, then?’
‘Not much. She called Flora, Ronald’s wife, a great fat pudding.’ Mrs Wakeford gave a little smile. ‘She did tell me once, though, that Stephen’s wife, Barbara, had more sense than the rest of them put together.’
‘She liked Barbara, did she?’
‘I wouldn’t go as far as say she liked her. She didn’t like anybody, really, but she admired Barbara’s spirit. Stephen’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, apparently, and his wife prodded him and kept him up to scratch as much as she could. He always looked harassed and worried any time I saw him, not like her. Brassy blonde, cheap showy clothes, mutton dressed like lamb. And she tottered about on her high heels with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, most of the time.’
Mabel paused, checking to see if the inspector was interested in this, and was pleased to see him listening carefully.
‘She wasn’t the type of woman I’d have expected Janet Souter to tolerate, even, but it seemed there was something in Barbara that appealed to her. Maybe it was because Barbara was the boss, and ordered Stephen around all the time – henpecked him, in fact.’
McGillivray was on the point of asking her to give him their names and addresses, when he remembered that the young constable had handed him a sheet of paper with all the details of the nephews and their wives, so he contented himself by prompting, ‘And what about the other nephew, Ronald, wasn’t it?’
‘Ronald? He’d a bit more sense than his cousin, as far as I know, and was master in his own house. He always looked the proper businessman, with his navy suit – rather the style of your sergeant, there, but maybe a fraction taller.’
David Moore looked up and smiled to her in return for the perhaps unintended compliment on his appearance.
‘He’s not as tall as you, though, I don’t think, Inspector.’ Saying this, Mrs Wakeford permitted herself a little smile, too, recalling how McGillivray had hit his head on her doorway when he first came in.
He understood what was amusing her, and thought ruefully that low-roofed cottages were hell when you were six feet four.
The woman continued with her descriptions of her neighbour’s relatives. ‘Ronald’s wife, Flora, was different altogether. She was never what you’d call elegantly dressed, though her clothes looked very expensive. She was rather stout, and, with being so short, she was really quite dumpy. She let Ronald have his own way over everything, and never argued with him. Mind you, I’m only going by what Janet Souter told me. I didn’t know them myself, except to see them coming and going.’
She stopped speaking when McGillivray stood up to help himself to a second cup of tea. ‘May I?’ he asked, holding up the teapot.
‘Oh yes, I’m sorry,’ she twittered. ‘I forgot to ask you. Go ahead, Inspector. There is plenty.’
Before she was finished, he was laying down the teapot again. ‘The two nephews and their wives came quite regularly to visit her, I presume?’ He added two spoons of sugar to his cup before resuming his seat.
She nodded. ‘Yes, Ronald and Flora came every Saturday afternoon, and Stephen and Barbara came on Sundays.’ She was talking much more freely than she had done at first, and even seemed to be enjoying it. ‘Not this past Saturday but the Saturday before, Janet told me that Ronald was furious because she wouldn’t lend him the money he’d asked for. I know she was charging Stephen a high interest on what she’d lent him, because she told me that weeks ago.’
‘I gather from the way you’re speaking, that she took great pleasure in all this?’
‘She was a dreadful woman, with a cruel streak in her. Oh!’ Mrs Wakeford’s hand flew up to her mouth. ‘I shouldn’t be saying that, should I, when she’s just been poisoned?’
The inspector looked sympathetic. ‘You can’t change your opinion of a person because she’s dead.’
‘No, I suppose that would be hypocritical. I must admit that I never liked her very much. In fact, there were times when I positively hated her, to be perfectly honest, and I think most people in the village felt the same way. I was more or less accustomed to her, of course, and she was somebody to talk to, but . . . well, I was shocked at what she told me next.’ Mabel moved uncomfortably in her chair.
At last she was coming to the nitty-gritty, McGillivray thought, and smiled to make her feel more at ease.
She hesitated then said, in a low voice, ‘She said she’d made a point of telling Ronald and Stephen about the arsenic she’d got.’
Swallowing nervously, she went on
. ‘As I told you, I was shocked at that, and I warned her she’d been stupid . . . she could be putting ideas into their heads, but she just laughed.’
Again, Mrs Wakeford paused, as if unwilling to say more. ‘Then she said she hoped they’d try to poison her.’
David Moore looked up from his note-taking with interest, but the inspector signalled to him with his eyes and he bent over industriously again.
‘I was worried about it for a while, but I came to the conclusion she must have gone out of her mind and was speaking a lot of nonsense. But after Stephen and his wife left on the next Sunday – this past Sunday, the twentieth – she came in and said her nephews had tried to poison her. Both her flour and sugar bins had been tampered with.’
The two CID men glanced at each other, then McGillivray asked, ‘How did she find that out? Did she say?’
Mabel shook her head in doubt. ‘I don’t know if she was telling the truth, or if it was something she’d dreamt, or even made up to make me feel sorry for her.’
‘Let me judge for myself, Mrs Wakeford. What did she say?’
‘She said she’d put a crumb of toast on both bins, and the one on the flour had gone after Ronald had been on Saturday. She’d put on another one and the two crumbs had disappeared after Stephen left on the Sunday. She said that both men had made an excuse to be on their own in her kitchen.’
She took a shivery breath and leaned back as if glad that she had got it all off her chest.
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ McGillivray wasn’t often surprised by any information he received, but he’d never heard anything like this before. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Wakeford. It just slipped out.’
‘It’s quite all right, Inspector.’
‘She was a devious one, wasn’t she, if she actually laid traps for her nephews?’
‘It seems like it, and she laughed about them doing it, and said they were going to be disappointed. She didn’t tell me why. But she did say she was looking forward to seeing their faces the next weekend, this weekend of course, when they discovered that she was still alive.’
The inspector was silent for a moment, going over what he had just been told, then he leaned forward. ‘Just a minute, Mrs Wakeford. If Miss Souter said she knew about it, and didn’t use the stuff, how do you think she died?’
She clutched at her pearls, and hesitated briefly. ‘I think she must have used some of it by mistake, before she threw it out, or whatever she meant to do with it. Her mind must have been going mustn’t it, it she was laying traps for people? It’s too awful to think about, really, but she kept on about them having tried to poison her. She even said she was going to give them some home-baked cakes the next time they came down, so that she could watch their faces. Of course, she didn’t live to carry that out, but she was glorying in the idea. A wicked, wicked woman, Inspector.’
‘With a twisted mind, it seems.’ McGillivray ran his fingers through his short hair, each curl springing back into its original position.
‘But remember, Inspector,’ Mabel went on hastily, ‘she may have been imagining it all, or making it up out of spite. I told you she was a nasty person, and I just can’t think that either Ronald or Stephen would have done anything like that. They looked such quiet men. And yet . . .’
‘And yet?’ McGillivray waited expectantly.
‘And yet, she’s dead, isn’t she?’ She buried her face in her hands.
‘Yes, she’s dead, Mrs Wakeford, but don’t upset yourself. We’ll find out who murdered her. Now, is there anything else you haven’t told us?’
‘No, that’s everything. Sergeant Black knew on Thursday that I was holding something back, and he made me tell him.’
‘You couldn’t have kept that to yourself, anyway. It would have preyed on your mind, and you’d have had no peace.’
‘It’s just that . . . I didn’t want to cast suspicion on Ronald and Stephen, when her story was maybe a pack of lies to land them in trouble.’
McGillivray smiled, and rose to his feet. ‘We’ll get to the truth, don’t you fret. If they’re innocent, they’ve nothing to fear. We may have to speak to you again, Mrs Wakeford, but we’ll leave you meantime. Will you be all right?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ve got over the initial shock of her actually being poisoned. I’m quite strong, really.’
‘Good. We’ll see ourselves out, and thank you for talking to us so frankly.’
They left by the back door, and were walking down the garden towards the Lane, when Sergeant Black came out of Number Three. ‘Hop over the fence,’ he instructed. ‘I’ve just told the two ladies here that you’d be calling. I think you should see them.’
He went over one fence, while McGillivray and Moore cleared the other one, and they met at Janet Souter’s door.
‘What d’you think so far?’ John Black asked.
The inspector turned to his sergeant. ‘Let’s hear you.’
‘Well, Mrs Wakeford seems to be sure about it being the arsenic,’ Moore began, pleased at having been consulted. ‘So it looks fairly certain that one of the nephews must have succeeded in killing the old lady. But which one?’
McGillivray looked amused. ‘Don’t believe everything you hear, lad. That story takes a lot of swallowing.’
John Black scowled. ‘Mrs Wakeford wouldn’t lie, sir. She’s a pillar of the church, and works a lot for charity.’ He was obviously incensed at the idea of her veracity being doubted.
‘They’re often the worst kind,’ McGillivray observed dryly. ‘But I didn’t say I thought she was telling fibs. It’s the dead woman’s story I find hard to credit. Now, fill me in about these other ladies.’
When Mrs Skinner took them in, McGillivray recognised, immediately, the signs of fear in Mrs Grant, so he gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I’m trying to fill in some background. What type of woman Miss Souter was, that kind of thing.’
It was Grace who answered, quietly and deliberately. ‘She was difficult, disagreeable, quarrelsome, and constantly complained about the least little thing. Now she’s gone, my sister and I will have peace to live our lives without her interference.’
Before he bent his head to the task of note-taking, David Moore noticed that Violet Grant was breathing rapidly, and had her eyes fixed apprehensively on her sister as if she were afraid of what she was going to say and was willing her to tread more carefully. If they hadn’t been such genteel ladies, he could have believed that they had something to hide, but it was likely pure nervousness on Mrs Grant’s part.
The inspector was admiring the forthrightness of the tall, thin woman sitting in front of him. Most females, when faced with a situation like this, wouldn’t have admitted so readily to bad feelings about a murdered person, but this one exuded an air of confidence, a will of iron.
‘What sort of things did she complain about, Mrs Skinner? We must make a picture of Miss Souter’s personality, you see, to help us to find a reason for her murder.’
‘Yes, of course. I quite understand.’ Grace smiled. ‘They were trivial things, usually, just enough to niggle us. About our dog digging in her garden, for instance.’
McGillivray gave no indication that he’d seen Mrs Grant’s extreme agitation at this point. Her face had blanched and her hands were clutching at her skirt. ‘Does your dog often go into her garden, Mrs Skinner?’
‘I’m sure she put out bones and things to entice him in the first place, then she started throwing stones at him, or even kicking him if she was near enough, so he hadn’t been going there so much.’
Callum McGillivray shifted the focus of his penetrating gaze to Violet, whose cheeks suddenly flooded with colour. ‘What breed of dog is he, Mrs Grant?’
‘He was a Skye terrier . . . mostly,’ she whispered, and her eyes filled with tears. She fumbled for her handkerchief and wiped them away.
Her interrogator persisted, his training forcing him to pursue the important part of her answer. ‘Was? Your dog is no longer with you, I take it?’
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bsp; Grace Skinner shot a warning glance at her sister, and spoke quickly, before Violet could reply. ‘Benjie died last week, I’m sorry to say.’
‘What was the cause of his death, ma’am?’ The inspector heard Mrs Grant draw in her breath sharply.
‘He contracted some kind of canine disease,’ Grace said, evasively.
Moore was surprised that McGillivray probed no further, seemingly satisfied with her answer, and Violet visibly relaxed at his next question.
‘What other complaints did Miss Souter make?’
‘She was offensive about my daughter’s caravan sitting in the Lane for a few days.’ Grace looked indignant even at the memory. ‘She said it obscured her view – yet they were only here for two weeks every year.’
‘Not a very sound reason, then?’
‘Not really. It was just another excuse to find fault. Then she complained about my sister playing the piano on a Sunday, said it spoiled her afternoon nap.’
‘I only played sacred songs, or something quiet,’ Violet volunteered, unexpectedly. She seemed less afraid now, and watched, with pride, as McGillivray looked with admiration at the old mahogany upright, lovingly polished to a high sheen.
‘I can’t remember everything,’ Grace continued, ‘for they were all rather trifling, but she was growing worse and we couldn’t have stood much more of it.’
‘I see.’ He placed his finger tips together, as if in prayer, and considered for a moment before he went on. ‘Did she ever speak to you about her nephews?’
‘She didn’t speak much to us at all, except to complain about something, and she didn’t discuss her nephews or their wives, but we saw them coming and going every weekend.’ She shook her head as an unwelcome thought struck her. ‘You’re not thinking that one of them used the arsenic on her?’
‘It would seem the obvious conclusion to make.’
Violet gasped and jumped to her feet. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Inspector?’
‘No, thank you.’ McGillivray smiled politely. ‘Mrs Wakeford very kindly made tea for us when we were in there. Please sit down, Mrs Grant.’
Jam and Jeopardy Page 6
