‘Not so much friendly, she wasn’t that kind of person. It’s a shame to speak ill of the dead, but really, Sergeant, I don’t believe she had any friends in Tollerton at all. She was a most unlikeable woman.’
‘That’s right.’ The interruption came from the customer standing at the other counter.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Pritchard, but the sergeant is talking to me.’ Miss Wheeler’s voice, cold and reproving, showed that she objected to the spotlight being diverted from her.
David Moore hastened to pour oil on the troubled waters. ‘If you care to wait a moment, Mrs Pritchard, I’ll have a word with you when I’ve finished with Miss Wheeler.’ The woman appeared to be fractionally appeased, but continued to glare at the postmistress.
‘As I was saying,’ that lady went on triumphantly, ‘Janet Souter took a delight in making things unpleasant for other people. She is – was – one of the oldest inhabitants, and thought she owned the place. Nobody has a good word to say for her, not even the minister’s wife, and she’s a perfect lady, but the old woman didn’t behave very nicely to her, either.’
‘The minister’s wife?’
‘Mrs Valentine. She came here with her husband about four or five years ago. A very nice couple, and he’s a real gem. Face and physique like a film star, and all the girls go wild about him, but he doesn’t let it go to his head. He’s a far better man than our last minister.’
‘His wife, though,’ Moore prompted. ‘You said . . .’
‘Oh, yes. Janet Souter snubbed her several times that I know about, over Sales of Work and various other fund-raising events, but Mrs Valentine never said anything against her, though we all knew there was no love lost between them.’ Emma Wheeler shot a quick glance at Mrs Pritchard, as if daring her to argue.
‘Do you know of anyone else who might have had a real grudge against the old lady, enough to . . .’
‘To murder her, d’you mean? It is murder, then. We thought it was, seeing all the different police going around. It’s not much help to you, Sergeant, but we’ve all felt like murdering her at times. That’s not the same as actually doing it, of course, is it?’
‘No, no, of course not.’ David Moore was fast becoming acutely aware of how difficult the case was going to be. ‘In your own dealings with her, did you ever have occasion to be really angry with her?’
‘Lots of times, but nothing so bad as make me turn homicidal and poison her.’
‘Thank you, Miss Wheeler, for being so honest with me.’ As Moore turned round, he noticed that the young assistant behind the counter was regarding him with a scared, wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression, and decided that he may as well have a word with her afterwards too. She looked to be about sixteen or seventeen, and sometimes youngsters innocently revealed more information than the older, more wordly wise.
But the customer, a woman nearing fifty, was waiting rather impatiently. ‘Now, Mrs Pritchard, have you anything further to tell me?’ He gave her his full attention, although he presumed that she merely wanted to add her tuppence worth about being shabbily treated by the murdered woman.
‘Well, it’s not that I knew Miss Souter very well, but I do know she caused an almighty row between Sydney Pettigrew, the chemist, and his youngest son.’
This was more like it, and Moore held his pen ready.
‘It was over May White. Her husband, Gilbert, works with an oil company in Abbie Dabbie, or something like that, so he only gets home once or twice a year.’
Emma Wheeler sniffed at this, but made no comment, so Mrs Pritchard carried on. ‘Well, May had been encouraging young Douglas Pettigrew to come to her house. It had been going on for months, and all of us down at that end of Ashgrove Lane knew about it, but it was none of our business. Douglas is about eighteen, and she must be about forty or so, though she looks in her early thirties. It wouldn’t have happened in my day, but you young folk today have a different outlook on life from us older ones, haven’t you?’
She looked at the sergeant, and winked. ‘It’s a permissive society nowadays, but the old witch – that’s what we called Janet Souter – found out about it. I think she saw him sneaking home early one morning, and put two and two together and made four, you know. She told Sydney what his son was up to, and, of course, she painted as black a picture as she could.’
David Moore paused in his note-taking as Mrs Pritchard stopped for breath. This was exactly what he was after, scandal of some kind. ‘So Douglas Pettigrew, and his father, would both have had cause to hate Miss Souter?’
The woman screwed up her face. ‘Hate’s maybe too strong a word, though, more dislike. Anyway, Sydney forbade Douglas ever to see May again, and went and had a row with the Falconers – that’s her parents – as well, saying it was all May’s fault for encouraging his son.’
‘It was all May’s fault,’ the young girl burst out. ‘She was always asking him down there, with all sorts of excuses. Douglas told me himself.’
‘Phyllis Barclay!’ Emma Wheeler felt obliged to reprimand her assistant. ‘You don’t know anything about it.’
The girl looked indignant. ‘Oh, yes, I do. He was going with me till she started with him.’
The two older women raised their eyebrows at this. It was obviously news to them.
‘He told me he didn’t want to go in the first place, but she pleaded with him to mend a fuse for her. He said he felt sorry for her, being on her own so much, and not having a man about the place to do things for her, so he gave in. He only meant to go the once, but she persuaded him to go back, to fix a washer, and stupid little jobs like that, and he ended up going two or three times a week. He said he couldn’t help himself, for she made him feel important.’ She swallowed to keep from crying.
David Moore made a few notes and left the conversation to develop by itself. Much more was being revealed than under his official questioning, so it was best to let the three women continue under their own steam.
Miss Wheeler was saying, ‘You never told me you’d been going out with Douglas Pettigrew, Phyllis.’
‘It wasn’t anybody’s business.’ The girl was defiant. ‘I told him it would all be over between us if he didn’t stop seeing her, and he just laughed. He said May knew how to whet a man’s appetite.’ There were tears now in the lovely blue eyes.
‘Well, I never!’ Miss Wheeler’s face registered all the shock which might be expected in an elderly maiden lady.
‘But he carried on with her, didn’t he?’ Mrs Pritchard was eager to hear more of the liaison.
‘Yes, he did, till Miss Souter told his father, and I don’t really know what happened then.’ Phyllis Barclay stopped, quite surprised at herself for telling these people so much. ‘But I do know Douglas would never have poisoned the old lady,’ she added, almost in a whisper.
There was a lengthy silence, during which her story was digested by the other three occupants of the store, until the door opened and a tall, gangling youth entered.
‘Hi!’ he said, to everyone in general. ‘I just came to tell you I’ll be a bit late coming for the Citizens, Miss Wheeler. I’m playing football this afternoon.’ He let his eyes wander round, then, sensing an atmosphere.
The sergeant realised that this must be the paperboy he had been told to question, and assumed his most official voice as he stepped forward. ‘You are William Arthur? I’m Detective Sergeant Moore of Grampian Police.’
He was amused to see the boy’s cockiness deflate a little, but Willie couldn’t help much. He’d noticed that Miss Souter’s milk was sitting at her door in the morning, and had told Miss Wheeler when he went back to the shop. Moore looked at the postmistress with his eyebrows raised.
‘I didn’t do anything about it.’ She hurried to defend herself. ‘You see, I was worried about what would happen if I sent the police up and nothing was wrong. She’d have been absolutely furious, and she’d likely have come stamping down here to give me what for.’
He could understand the poor woman’s dilemma
, so he turned to the paperboy again.
‘I didn’t know what to do, either,’ admitted Willie. ‘Miss Souter was an old . . . but she was always on the go. I suspected something must be wrong with her, so I told Mrs Wakeford at teatime when I saw the milk still at the door. I didn’t realise she’d been poisoned, though.’
‘Who told you she’d been poisoned, Willie?’ Moore wondered how this had got out. He was sure that John Black would never have divulged any such information, not to the paperboy, at any rate.
‘It’s . . .’ The boy caught himself, remembering his promise to the local sergeant, then went on hastily. ‘It’s all over the village, and somebody was bound to do her in some day, the way she went on.’
‘Willie!’ Miss Wheeler cautioned the boy, although she had hinted at much the same thing herself.
‘Did you notice anything unusual when you were there in the morning, Willie? Anything different, that a stranger might not have seen? Something that might give us a clue to finding out who killed her?’
The fourteen-year-old pondered for a moment, then said, ‘No, but I’ve never looked in her window before, so I wouldn’t have known anything was unusual, would I? Miss Wheeler said she was going to tell the copper . . . Constable Paul, but she didn’t see him. But Mrs Wakeford phoned the police station as soon as I told her about it in the afternoon.’
He looked slightly downcast as he added, ‘Sergeant Black wouldn’t let me and Mrs Wakeford into Miss Souter’s house, though.’
Moore pushed in the top of his Biro, and clipped it into his breast pocket, then slid his notebook down behind it. ‘Thank you all very much for your cooperation.’
‘That’s all right, Sergeant. Call again any time.’ Miss Wheeler took command again as he walked out of the shop.
He glanced through the window when he walked past, and saw them, as he’d expected, deep in speculation as to who could be responsible for the murder. He was annoyed, but not altogether surprised, to find the inspector still lying on his bed when he returned to the Starline. McGillivray looked up, and Moore was sure that he’d been asleep.
‘Did you uncover any skeletons in any of the village cupboards, lad?’
‘Not really, sir. The only interesting thing that came out was a bit of scandal concerning a young married woman who lives at the foot of Ashgrove Lane.’ The sergeant sat down wearily and unbuttoned his jacket.
‘Oh yes?’ McGillivray perked up. ‘There’s nothing better than scandal for making feelings run high and tempers snap in the heat of the moment.’
Moore recounted the stories Mrs Pritchard and Phyllis Barclay had told him, while his superior listened attentively with his head on one side.
‘So. This young lad . . .’
‘Douglas Pettigrew, the chemist’s son.’
‘This Douglas Pettigrew would’ve been pretty mad at the old woman for sabotaging his love nest; and the married Jezebel would likely have been none too pleased about it either, but hardly angry enough to make her kill, eh, Moore?’
‘Probably not. She’s likely just been amusing herself with the boy to pass the time, nothing very passionate.’
The inspector swung his legs round. ‘ “Hell hath no fury . . .” ’
‘She wasn’t scorned, sir. Maybe thwarted.’
‘We’ll have to keep her in mind, just the same . . . and the boy.’ McGillivray sat on the edge of the bed, thinking, until the sergeant cleared his throat. He looked up. ‘Did anything else turn up, Moore?’
‘Nothing exciting. The murdered woman wasn’t well liked, but I don’t think any of the people I spoke to disliked her enough to poison her. The ironmonger said she’d got the arsenic from a Davie Livingstone to kill rats, and he’d told her it was dangerous, so she wouldn’t have been careless with it.’
McGillivray rubbed his stubbly chin. ‘Maybe, but she was eighty-seven, after all, and her memory wouldn’t have been so good. She could have contaminated her own food, if she’d forgotten to wash her hands, or left some of it on her clothes. What d’you think?’ His eyes were twinkling, and Moore wondered what he was up to.
His stomach was crying out for food, but he had to take the time to correct the Inspector. ‘No, sir, it couldn’t have been that. Mr Hood said she wasn’t senile, and would have been very careful because this other man had warned her it was deadly stuff.’
McGillivray pulled his shoes towards him. ‘Is that a fact? Moore, you’ll just have time to give yourself a wash before lunch.’
The sergeant stood up thankfully, then paused with his hand on the door knob. ‘It just occurred to me, sir, the chemist said he’d never had any real trouble with Miss Souter, but she was the one who told him about his son and this Mrs White. Would there be any significance in him not mentioning that?’
‘There might be.’ The inspector winced as his tender feet came in contact with the new leather. ‘If he was guilty, he wouldn’t want you to know that he’d a reason for getting rid of her. On the other hand, if he was innocent, he could have considered that it had nothing to do with the case, and that it was nobody’s business but his family’s. Get moving, Sergeant. My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.’
Chapter Eight
Saturday 26th November, afternoon
Walking alongside him down Ashgrove Lane, David Moore wondered what the DCI had been up to while he’d been calling on the shopkeepers. McGillivray wasn’t a bad old boy, really, quite pleasant to work with, and this being their second assignment together, the young man was learning to respect his superior’s thorough methods of detection, unorthodox as they appeared to be at times.
Ashgrove Lane was quite long, with hedges and fields on both sides once they left Honeysuckle Cottages behind. The old railway station could be seen some little distance away to the right, with the abandoned warehouse – the source of the rats, according to the ironmonger – on the near side of it.
The cluster of buildings they came to were much nearer the road, and more modern, than those at the top, but lacked the quaint character of the low old-fashioned cottages.
‘Which one would be the love nest, I wonder?’ McGillivray mused, screwing up his eyes to read the nameplates. ‘Ah, here it is.’ He opened the second gate and walked up the short path.
His press on the bell was answered by a young woman who could have passed, at first glance, for being under thirty, but was probably a good few years older than that. Her face was free of any make-up except for the deep red gash of her mouth. The DCI thought that she possibly felt naked without her lipstick.
‘Mrs Gilbert White?’
‘In the flesh,’ was the light-hearted reply.
‘May we come in?’
A flash of alarm showed in the green eyes for a fraction of a second. ‘But who . . . ?’
‘I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. Detective Chief Inspector McGillivray, Grampian CID, and this is Detective Sergeant Moore.’
Showing them into her living room, she asked anxiously, ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there? Gilbert hasn’t been in an accident, or anything?’
McGillivray hastened to reassure her. ‘No, no, Mrs White. I apologise if I frightened you. We’re investigating the murder of Miss Janet Souter of Honeysuckle Cottages.’
‘Yes, I heard about that. It was about time somebody bumped the old bitch off.’
‘May we sit down?’ The inspector was already lowering himself into an armchair by the electric fire.
‘Sure, why not? Make yourselves at home. Would you like a drink?’
‘No, thank you. Not when we’re on duty.’
She fluttered her long eyelashes. ‘Oh, come on. A little drop won’t hurt you.’
Moore glanced at McGillivray hopefully, although he expected to hear another firm refusal, and was deeply thankful when the inspector said, ‘A very small one, then, and I really mean small.’
‘You too, Sergeant?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Coming right up.’ May White switched off her
stereo and went across the room to the cocktail cabinet against the rear wall. Her catlike movements were accentuated by the fact that her legs were encased in tight black satin trousers, and her scarlet T-shirt outlined her shape in perfect detail. The two men watched with great admiration while she poured out three generous measures of whisky.
When she turned to ask, ‘Lemonade, soda or water?’ the inspector had to drag his mind away from the pleasant contemplation of her figure. ‘Just a splash of soda, please.’
When she sat down, opposite McGillivray, she held her glass up. ‘Good luck in your quest, gentlemen. I don’t think I’ll be able to help you, mind, but fire away.’
‘We’ve been led to believe that Miss Souter was instrumental in bringing your . . . association with Douglas Pettigrew to an abrupt end,’ he began.
May giggled. ‘Association? That’s putting it mildly. We’d a real hot affair going till she put her oar in and told his dad. Now he’s not allowed to come here any more.’ She took a small sip of the spirits, held it in her mouth for a second, then swallowed.
‘So we could gather that you had good reason to dislike her?’
‘Enough to murder her? Oh no. I despised Douglas for just knuckling down and not defying his father, so he’s not worth a damn to me now. I like my men to be men.’ Her eyes teased.
‘You weren’t heartbroken by his desertion, then?’
‘I was bloody annoyed, but my heart doesn’t break so easily. There’s plenty of other fish in the sea.’ She leaned back in her chair and stuck her stockinged feet out towards the fire. ‘He was only a boy, but he amused me for a while. Gil’s away such a lot, he can’t expect me to be faithful to him.’
McGillivray persisted. ‘The boy himself, though. He was apparently very angry with Miss Souter. Would he have been hot-headed enough to kill her?’
Her laughter was derisive. ‘Hell no. I’d a helluva job getting him where I wanted him.’ She leaned over and lifted a packet of cigarettes from a coffee table. ‘Smoke?’
‘Not just now, thanks.’ McGillivray waited until she flicked the table lighter and inhaled deeply. ‘Maybe the boy was deeply in love with you. Love makes people do strange things.’
Jam and Jeopardy Page 8
