by Gwen Moffat
‘I hadn’t realised that Blondel was your brother’s farm,’ Miss Pink said pleasantly. ‘That was to have been the Thornthwaites’ place.’
‘I haven’t offered you anything.’ Edith was suddenly the soul of courtesy. ‘Tea? Something a little stronger?’
‘Why not? The sun’s over the yard-arm.’
Edith’s grin was unsettling. She brought a half-bottle of cherry brandy from a corner cupboard and two wine glasses. Miss Pink watched benignly as they were filled almost to the brim.
Edith sat down again, sipped and sighed luxuriously, giving an impression of bliss. She nodded and smiled. ‘I didn’t stay long at Blondel,’ she said, ‘I married Mr Bland and moved away.’
‘Why didn’t Mrs Fawcett take up the tenancy?’
‘Did she not tell you that? No, she wouldn’t. Once her man were gone she couldn’t have managed on her own, and her in the family way.’
‘So she handed the place over to Isaac.’
‘That’s right. It was a tenancy: Fawcett property.’
‘Like this place.’
Edith nodded. ‘Our local aristocrats.’ The tone was naïve but the sentiment could have been contempt.
‘Difficult to keep up appearances in these days,’ Miss Pink murmured. ‘Mrs Fawcett would like to sell this place.’
‘She can do that.’ It was a statement of fact, without feeling.
‘Not while you’re in it,’ Miss Pink said.
‘I’ll be gone soon enough.’
‘Glaucoma doesn’t mean blindness. Your drugs will contain
the condition, stop it getting worse.’
‘You know everything.’ Again a statement, neither sarcastic
nor accusing.
Goaded, Miss Pink said, ‘You weren’t well disposed towards Mrs Fawcett when we talked before.’
‘I’ve known her since we were bairns.’
‘Hardly known. She’s older than you. She was married when you were Joan’s age.’
‘I were older than Joannie. You’re not drinking. Don’t you like cherry brandy?’
She was getting nowhere with Edith, who could turn the sharpest of questions. ‘Why would Isaac be calling on Perry?’ she asked, letting the curiosity show.
Edith portrayed surprise. ‘She were a prostitute!’
‘He visited prostitutes with a loaded gun?’
The silence seemed to go on for ever and not once did Edith take her eyes from her visitor’s face. Miss Pink could feel those eyes as she lowered her own and sipped her cherry brandy.
Edith sighed. ‘I’ve wondered about that myself. I can’t think — unless he were afraid of that Rick. And yet I thought as, if the fellow was joined up with her like, in business, he’d become her — what d’you call it?’
‘Her pimp?’
‘She’d be walking the streets and he’d be taking the money. Is that a pimp?’
‘But if Isaac was paying Perry, why would Rick mind? So why should Isaac need a gun when he went visiting?’
‘I can’t make head nor tail of it. I suppose it was his gun. The police can prove that?’
Could they? Surely there was no way that lead shot could carry a signature.
‘Maybe there was another gun.’ Edith was watching her closely. ‘Isaac left his in the ‘Rover but someone had another.’
‘Someone?’
‘Well, obvious, isn’t it? They got him down at the station — he tried to put it on Mr Robson but he’s a responsible married man — and she run off, the little whore — or did he kill her too? No more’n she deserved, the bitch. No knowing, is there, with a pair like that?’
The cherry brandy had released a sluice and the viciousness was seeping through. Miss Pink remembered something else. ‘Was Walter gay?’ she asked.
Edith jerked upright. ‘Walter? Walter who?’
‘Thornthwaite. Was he homosexual?’ Edith looked bewildered. ‘He preferred boys?’ Miss Pink asked impatiently. She thought of Isaac and grimaced. ‘Or men?’
‘Never!’ Edith checked. ‘We’d have known,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘At your age?’
‘I mean the village would have known, but there was never a suggestion of anything like that. The opposite: when he disappeared just after Joannie there were never no question in folk’s minds. I mean, there wouldn’t be, would there? No, Walter Thornthwaite were a fine figure of a man.’
*
‘So what did you find?’ Anne closed the door of Nichol House and faced Miss Pink, her expression defiant, even wild. She caught the other’s glance at the stairs. ‘There’s no one here,’ she snapped. ‘They’ve taken the dog for a run. You’ve been an age. What on earth did you find there?’
‘Oh, in the flat? Nothing. No yeast tablets — but Edith was listening behind that partition at the foot of the disused stairs. So I tackled her.’ Miss Pink didn’t add that in the short distance between Plumtree Yard and Nichol House she had come to the conclusion that Rick’s intention had been just that: she should go next door and approach Edith. As it happened, Edith had initiated the meeting, however unwittingly.
Anne was leading the way to the kitchen. ‘Drink?’ she asked harshly, waving her guest to a chair at the table where she was preparing supper.
‘Beer, if you have it, to get the taste of cherry brandy out of my mouth.’
‘She was drunk?’
‘She certainly lost her inhibitions.’
‘Yes?’ Anne put a bottle of Budweiser in front of Miss Pink who looked at it blankly. Anne found an opener in a drawer, opened the bottle and stared at it as if uncertain what to do next.
‘A glass?’ Miss Pink murmured.
Anne brought a tumbler, absent-mindedly wiping it with a corner of her apron.
Miss Pink poured the beer slowly. ‘Is it possible that Edith could have been infatuated with your first husband?’ she asked incuriously, as if advancing some unimportant theory.
Defiance faded but Anne was still tense and her eyelids drooped, masking the expressive eyes. ‘It’s possible,’ she said coldly. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘She’s fiercely jealous of you.’
‘I married a Fawcett. Edith was always neurotic.’ She paused, then continued: ‘And she had no children. I suppose to a person of her calibre I have everything. What else did she have to say?’
Miss Pink shook her head as if to rid it of a thought, or a train of thought. ‘Did you wonder why Isaac went to Whelp Yard with a gun, and loaded at that?’
‘He meant to shoot someone.’
‘That had to be Rick or Perry, or both of them. Why?’
‘My dear!’ Anne gave an angry laugh. ‘How would I know?’
‘I don’t think anyone knows. I wondered if you have a theory. I’m sure Harald has.’
‘Harald’s full of theories.’
‘But does he have one in this case?’
‘I don’t encourage him, not in that; not over the happenings in Whelp Yard. It’s too close to home.’
The words hung in the air. Their eyes held until Anne looked away.
‘There’s a link between the two murders,’ Miss Pink said.
‘What — two murders? What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Joan Gardner and Isaac.’
Anne’s eyes wandered but she wouldn’t look directly at the other. ‘There’ll be a number of links,’ she agreed. ‘Tenuous, but links all the same. Did you have something specific in mind?’
‘Blackmail.’
‘Oh yes?’ The voice climbed and sank. ‘Really.’ Anne coughed. ‘And who is blackmailing whom?’
‘Both of them. Isaac prevailed on you to let him have Blondel; Edith has persuaded you not to turn the two flats in Plumtree into one house, which would have meant she’d have to leave.’
Anne’s lips stretched, a grimace rather than a smile. ‘And what would be the basis for blackmail?’
‘They have some proof that your first husband was with Joan before she disappeared. Pe
rhaps she told Edith that she was going to meet him —’
‘That child was nine years old —’
‘And — accustomed to men.’
‘That’s a foul suggestion.’
Miss Pink regarded her steadily. ‘You implied Clive’s visit was coincidence, but you sent for him after the bone was found.’
Anne licked her lips. ‘I didn’t send for him but he had to know. Walter was — is his father. And he could still be alive.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But I’ve always maintained his innocence,’ she added defiantly.
‘In spite of everything.’
Anne nodded. ‘They do know something — she does, it’s just Edith left now. It was only hints but it was enough — and yes, Joan had told Edith that Walter was — interested in her. Mind you, there was no truth in it; no way would Walter —’
‘There’s a suggestion that he was gay.’
Anne’s hand flew to her mouth and now she did stare at Miss Pink who hid her surprise. After a moment Anne said weakly, ‘Think of the scandal there’d have been in that little community forty-five years ago!’
‘So that’s why you say he wasn’t interested in little girls.’
‘No question of it. He’d steer well clear of her. And of Edith. She was the one with her nose into everything. And what she knew, she’d tell Isaac. Thank God there’s only her to contend with now. I can deal with her.’
Quite. One blackmailer down: one to go. Didn’t the woman realise that she had set herself up not only as a potential murderer but as an actual one?
‘And you’ve never heard from Walter since,’ Miss Pink said.
‘Never. Except for the postcard of course.’
‘Ah, that postcard. There never was one.’
At that point Anne should have shown her the door but she remained seated, her face empty, becoming relaxed. After a while she said quietly, ‘When a man walks out on you, the first reaction is shock, then humiliation. No way are you going to let the neighbours think you’ve been abandoned. You’re right, there never was a postcard.’ She had herself well in hand now. ‘You’ll be thinking that my saying I had a postcard could also be a cover for murder.’
‘It could be,’ Miss Pink agreed. ‘Getting in touch with home might imply he had nothing to fear but —’ She stopped deliberately.
‘ — but he was gay?’ Anne shook her head. ‘However, he could have had a motive for that murder. Joan could have seen something she shouldn’t, and taunted him, threatened to tell the neighbours.’
‘What might she have seen?’
‘We didn’t lock our houses in those days. Children ran in and out. There was no stealing.’ She smiled wryly. ‘There was nothing to steal, nothing that would appeal to a child. However, Joan — or Edith, it’s immaterial — one of them could have come in our house when I wasn’t there, gone upstairs and found Walter.’
Miss Pink sighed. ‘With a friend?’
‘No! You’ve assumed he was homosexual. Not as far as I knew, and I’d have known. What he did was quite harmless.’ She stopped. Miss Pink was racking her brains. ‘He dressed up,’ Anne went on, ‘Oh, for heavens’ sake, don’t look at me like that! There are programmes on the TV, there are performers on the stage; no one thinks anything of it nowadays. It’s legal.’
‘Cross-dressing?’ Miss Pink couldn’t believe it, the innocuous nature of it. Then enlightenment dawned. Forty-five years ago — a remote community in the Lake District — a respectable farmer. ‘Ridicule!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’d never have lived it down. But you were leaving anyway; you’d planned to go to Canada.’
‘We’d talked about it but when Walter took off I had to reconsider. Harald’s father had offered us Blondel and we’d decided in favour of that rather than emigrating. However, I had to pretend that we’d reverted to the idea of Canada after all and Walter would be sending for me. Actually that’s what I hoped had happened, that something had snapped, he’d walked out but he’d come to his senses and we’d be together again.’ Anne wouldn’t meet Miss Pink’s eye. ‘So I let Isaac Dent have Blondel to keep up the subterfuge; I wouldn’t be needing it because I was emigrating. Meanwhile old Mr Fawcett let me live in one of his cottages.’
‘What did you really think — when Walter didn’t send for you and there was no communication from him?’
‘There was no time lapse. Shortly after Walter left, Isaac asked me to let him have Blondel. He said he’d been out late with the sheep and seen Walter leading a pony up the Corpse Road with a load on its back, at night. And Edith had told him Walter wore women’s clothes. Joan had seen him. So he even knew why Walter killed her.’
‘You’ve known all along!’
‘And I’ve lied all along. Wouldn’t you? Joan Gardner was a monster and I’m sure he didn’t mean to kill her. He’d have struck out in a panic — or anger when she taunted him.’
‘You were fond of him.’
‘Of course I was! We didn’t have a bad marriage. I knew what he liked to do — after all, it was my clothes he wore. Had to, didn’t he? He couldn’t shop for himself. He trusted me, knew I’d never say a word to anyone, knew he was far better off with me than he could be with anyone else. Our relationship was stable.’
‘And he was the father of your baby.’
‘I said: he wasn’t homosexual; there was just this one little twist to him. He should have sent for us, you know; I came to think that he must have been prevented: robbed and murdered, maybe in some big seaport. The police may be able to trace his movements but I doubt it; they’ll close the books, Clive says, although a case is never officially closed until the murderer is caught.’
‘He can’t be caught if he’s dead.’
‘Perhaps they’ll assume he is. If he’s alive he’s too old to do any harm — and the police have another murder now.’ She smiled grimly. ‘They have to discover who was lying in wait for Isaac.’ Miss Pink was expressionless. ‘You left us rather late that night,’ Anne went on, fixing her with those hawkish eyes, ‘and afterwards none of us left the house.’ She gave a sudden ravishing smile and in the face of it there was no need for her to add a corollary: that Harald and Clive would alibi her. ‘That would leave Perry,’ she said. ‘And you reckon Isaac’s death ties in with that old murder?’
‘You come back to the question: why did he take a loaded gun with him to Whelp Yard? Perhaps Perry knew something about him? Blackmail again? But surely she’d had hardly any contact with him: just that day when she arrived in Orrdale and Bags found the bone —’
‘Isaac’s too old to be a criminal.’
‘No one’s too old. And someone was shot in the Hoggarths’ kitchen. It had to be Isaac; there are the wounds. You can’t shoot yourself beside the ear with a sporting gun.’
‘There’s Jonty Robson.’
‘I’d forgotten him. You’re suggesting he went there, after Perry, and shot Isaac by mistake. No, he wouldn’t kill the girl because she’d stolen his sun-glasses and twenty pounds. Anyway, his wife will alibi him.’
‘Naturally.’
Idle speculation: things were running down. Energy was running out. Miss Pink went home determined to have an early night. Waiting for her TV dinner to heat, sipping a modest shot of Talisker, she considered Anne’s revelations which, if garbled at the time, made some sense in perspective. Anne was a woman of principle, but they were her own principles. She had lied in her teeth to protect her first husband, had succumbed to blackmail for the same reason, had even attempted to pull the wool over Miss Pink’s eyes this evening, until cornered and forced to come clean. And all this for a man whom she hadn’t seen for forty-five years, who was probably dead — but then he was Clive’s father.
Clive knew his father had killed, but Miss Pink guessed that if Harald suspected, he would be too well mannered ever to broach the subject, and certainly he hadn’t known about Edith’s blackmail. Only this morning he’d been all in favour of her leaving Plumtree Yard. He could have known about Isaac’s intimidation of
Anne in respect of Blondel but there too, Harald being Harald, he could have held aloof. Not his business.
Someone knocked at her front door. She was immobile, all ears. She hadn’t switched on a light, had been relishing the dusky shadows and the shining sky. She took a sip of whisky and waited, reflecting that no one could pose a threat in the centre of Kelleth — and then she recalled the blood in Whelp Yard.
‘Melinda!’ came Clive’s voice below her window, pitched just loud enough to reach her if she were awake. She made no sign. After a while she heard a murmur and, standing well back from the window, she saw his heavy form plodding through the tombstones, Bags walking a few paces behind.
13
‘They’ve charged him,’ Dave Murray blurted as Miss Pink opened her door. ‘No’ — seeing her dismay — ‘not with murder, but with sex with a minor —’
‘He didn’t —’
‘I know, you know, but she slept at his flat, he visited her at the Hoggarths’ place. Anyway it’s only a holding charge, a ploy while they search for more evidence against him — or against them. As things stand it’s too circumstantial; he swears he left his prints at the Hoggarths’ the night before Isaac was shot. But there’s Perry too. If Rick didn’t shoot Isaac, was it her?’
‘Isaac and Perry,’ she mused, ‘We keep coming back to that pair.’
‘They weren’t a pair! I’m not even sure they met.’
‘Oh, they met — well, not to say met... Heavens! Jonty Robson!’
‘He’d have killed Perry, not Isaac.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘You can’t go up there. He’s away in any case.’
‘Rick got no answer when he went there. It doesn’t mean they were away. And if they were, they could have come back.’
During the drive up the hill she felt stimulated, revitalised by the news of the danger looming for Rick. She was at her best in emergencies, rising to the challenge. True, the lesser danger might be more apparent than real, but Rick had put his head on the block by taking Perry into his house. Tyndale was within his rights to charge him on that score, except that if Perry could be found, she would surely deny that there had been any sexual shenanigans. The problem was that while Rick was in custody Tyndale was free to find evidence that might incriminate him in murder.
