by Gwen Moffat
Rosie made tea, noting that he’d washed his breakfast things and left them to drain: one side plate, one mug, a cafetière disassembled and rinsed. There was a litre of milk in the fridge, bottled water, Cranberry Pressé and Coke, butter, a jar of Lemon Shred. The freezer compartment was stacked with pizzas and pre-cooked meals. The kitchen was quite neat but then a man who rinsed the cafetière wasn’t the type to make a mess. How long had his wife been gone?
‘It doesn’t have to be her,’ he was saying when Rosie returned with the tea.
‘What time did she leave, sir’?’ Sewell asked politely. He was the high-flyer: young, dishy, with lazy eyes. He skied and swam and moved like a cat, the antithesis of DC Holgate, who was putting on weight like a Christmas goose since he married a fat lady and stopped playing rugby. No high-flyer, Holgate, but a steady old gander, always remembering that some people use geese as watchdogs. He didn’t miss much.
Lambert was in shock. He tasted his tea, said, ‘I don’t take sugar,’ but when Rosie told him to drink it along with the three spoonfuls she’d shovelled in, he did so without further protest. His face was blank, almost serene.
‘What time did she go out?’ Sewell repeated casually, thinking that the fellow was worth a bit: that bread cupboard was superb. Still Lambert didn’t respond to the question. Sewell tried again. ‘Was your wife here when you came home yesterday?’
‘No.’
‘What time did you get home?’
‘The usual. Around half-five.’
‘You don’t come home at midday?’
‘No.’
‘Was she here at breakfast time? What time did you leave for work?’
He shook his head as if two questions were more than he could take. There were light footsteps on the stairs and his eyes went to the doorway. ‘I’d forgotten you,’ he said.
The atmosphere changed. Without making any overt movement the detectives’ concentration sharpened, like gun dogs catching the whirr of wings. The newcomer was pretty, cool, nubile. She wore baggy jeans and a skimpy tank top exposing a long brown waist. She was barefooted. She was also very young, but surely not young enough to be Lambert’s daughter.
‘I’m Gemma,’ she told them. ‘Who are you, since no one’s going to introduce me?’ The nonchalance was studied. Since Rosie was in uniform it was fairly obvious that they were all police officers.
‘I’ve forgotten their names too,’ Lambert said. ‘I can’t remember a bloody thing.’
‘What’s going on?’ Gemma started to shrill. ‘What’s wrong with you, Wally?’ She appealed to Rosie. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Hang on, miss.’ Holgate came in heavily, raising a meaty hand. He had two teenage daughters. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. ‘I’m DC Holgate from Bailrigg, and this is DS Sewell and Sergeant Winder. You’re Gemma. Gemma what?’
‘Lambert.’ She spat it at him. ‘What else?’
His expression didn’t change but he was wondering if there’d been some ghastly mistake. Maybe she just looked young. ‘You’re his wife?’
‘His wife! Wally, what is this?’ She swooped on his chair and shook him. ‘Wake up, Wally! Where’s –’ She stopped and looked round at them, distressed. ‘Isa? Something happened to Isa?’
‘Isa is his wife?’ Holgate stated with just the suggestion of a query.
‘Of course she is. I’m his sister.’ She looked from him to Sewell, to Rosie. ‘Isa took the MG, didn’t she?’ She came back to her brother. ‘I see. She’s crashed it.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘She couldn’t drive it,’ she told him. ‘It had nothing to do with you. There was no way you could stop her. Everyone said she’d – crash one day.’
Walter rubbed his knees. ‘I should never have given her that car.’
‘Give over.’ She walked to the bread cupboard and came back with a bottle of Glenlivet and a tumbler. She poured a small measure, went to the kitchen, ran the tap, and returned. The level looked the same. He sipped at it. Evidently even under extreme stress he wouldn’t drink a single malt as if it were tea. Behind Gemma’s back Sewell signalled to Rosie.
‘Is this half-term?’ she asked.
Gemma turned, surprised that the woman should put in her oar. She nodded, frowning.
‘So you were at home yesterday,’ Rosie said.
‘Ye-es.’ The hesitation was marked, but then it wasn’t unusual for a young girl to be wary of a policewoman.
‘What time did your stepmother go –’
‘Hey! My sister-in-law!’
Rosie blushed at the gaffe and Sewell’s eyes gleamed. Holgate was expressionless.
‘Sorry,’ Rosie said. ‘What time did she go out?’
‘I don’t know! I wasn’t home – not all day. I was with my friend – friends; I was all over the place.’
‘When did you last see your sister-in-law?’ Sewell asked.
Gemma moved and sat down in a chair from where she could keep an eye on her brother. His colour was returning and he looked slightly less shocked. ‘It’s difficult,’ she said slowly. ‘We had lunch – wait, did we? No, that was the day before; yesterday I had lunch with Miss Salkeld and Miss Pink.’
Sewell raised an eyebrow at Rosie. ‘The tearoom where I asked the way,’ she told him.
‘Did you come home after lunch?’ he asked.
‘No.’ They waited for more. ‘I was looking for a cat,’ she said, adding to Rosie: ‘Phoebe’s cat. He doesn’t have a home now, you see, with her place shut up; he can get in of course, there’s a cat flap, but the place is empty so he wanders around looking for her. And crying. I thought I’d bring him back here, so I was looking for him.’
Walter was staring at her, blinking at the torrent of words.
‘While you were out,’ Sewell said, ‘did you see your sister-in-law’s MG go through the village?’
‘It’s not – No.’ Pause. ‘Where did she –’ She threw a furtive glance at Walter and stopped.
Sewell nodded to Rosie and the message was unmistakable. ‘Come outside, Gemma,’ she said.
The girl looked mutinous. ‘Can you do that –’ she began.
‘Go with her, Gemma.’ Walter’s voice was high and brittle and she went without a murmur.
Outside, beyond the drooping tresses of the laburnum, she said coldly, trying to sound adult, ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s why he’s gone to pieces. Are you going to tell me what happened or do I have to hear it from him?’
Rosie said, ‘She ran out of road at the T-junction where Waterhouses intersects the lane along the top of the crags.’
‘What! And went in the river? Down that cliff: straight through the wall? The stupid, stupid cow! Why in hell didn’t she jump clear?’
‘I suppose she couldn’t undo the seat belt in time.’
‘Come on! She never –’ Gemma gasped and turned away, into the laburnum, lashing out as if the blooms were animate. ‘She would never have waited – I mean’ – she turned back, her eyes fixed on Rosie – ‘it was deliberate. She was neurotic.’
Rosie returned the stare, trying to appear receptive. There was no responsible adult present, on the other hand there were no witnesses. ‘You think it was suicide?’
‘She was crazy. She should never have – lived here. She hated Borascal.’
‘Enough to – Why did she live here then?’
‘Because she married my brother of course! They’ve only been married two years. It was still the honeymoon period, you know? They’re madly in love but Isa, she’s a townie; she had nothing to do here so she just used to take the MG and drive. She was a lousy driver, she’d failed her test dozens of times.’
‘You’re saying she didn’t have a licence.’
‘Isa wouldn’t give a toss for a licence. She was never caught – not by your lot, but everyone said she’d crash.’
‘She drove well enough to reach the river,’ Rosie pointed out. ‘She’d crossed the main road to get there and that’s scary. How many fatalities have there bee
n on that road already this year?’
‘She was lucky. That’s the point about learner drivers: they can manage fine until something goes wrong, then they panic. I bet you’ll find the tyres or the brakes, or both of them, are worn. So she skidded and didn’t know how to correct, or she over-corrected.’
‘You drive?’ Rosie was casual.
‘I’m fifteen. I don’t drive but I know how to. I don’t live in a vacuum.’
No, and you’re not thick, Rosie thought.
Inside the house Sewell was trying to hang on to his patience. ‘What we need to do, sir, is build up a picture of how she came to be there.’
‘Why?’ There was a hint of belligerence in the tone. Walter wanted them to go away, to leave him alone, or alone with his sister. ‘She had an accident,’ he went on wearily. ‘Can’t you leave it there?’
‘We have to investigate road accidents,’ Holgate intoned.
Some comprehension showed in Walter’s face. ‘Detectives have to?’
‘It’s an offence to drive without a licence.’
‘Not if the learner’s accompanied by a qualified driver,’ Sewell put in.
‘But she wasn’t,’ Holgate said, adding, looking at Walter, ‘Was she, sir?’
The man seemed bewildered. ‘But you said she was alone! You can’t mean someone was with her and he jumped clear: survived?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s impossible, he’d have reported it – why, he’d have tried to get her out … How deep is it there?’
‘Who was teaching her?’ Sewell asked.
‘Teaching her what?’ Bewilderment gave way to anger.
‘Instructing her.’
‘I took her out a few times,’ Walter admitted, ‘but I gave up. Husbands shouldn’t try to instruct their wives. She was having a couple of sessions a week with an instructor from Bailrigg.’
‘In the MG or a school car?’
‘Oh, one from the school. Chap used to come and pick her up.’
‘We’ll need his particulars. When was the last time you were in the MG?’
‘Sunday.’ He didn’t have to think about it. ‘She left it blocking the drive and I had to move it so that I could get out on Monday morning.’
There was silence for a moment, then Sewell said, ‘You’re saying your wife was out in the MG on Sunday?’
Walter swallowed. ‘That’s right.’
‘Alone?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Here.’ He looked around. ‘Gardening. I was outside all day – after I read the papers. This time of year the garden tends to get on top of you.’
‘You didn’t leave the house all day? Where did Mrs Lambert go?’
‘I’ve no idea. I mean, she didn’t say.’
‘She was gone all day, alone, a learner driver, and you didn’t ask?’
He looked at them miserably and gave a deep sigh. ‘She was unhappy. She used to go to Carlisle a lot. Her family are there.’
‘So you did know where she went. Why not say so?’
The atmosphere had changed. There was an air of hostility to the questions but he appeared to be unaware of it. He stared at the bottle of whisky on the coffee table. ‘I could accept her driving round the lanes in the MG,’ he confessed, ‘but going to Carlisle: on busy roads, driving in the city, that was unbearable. I had to block it out.’
‘You could have stopped it,’ Holgate said.
‘She’s – she was my wife,’ Walter said thickly, ‘not my daughter. You think I didn’t try?’
‘You bought her the MG.’
‘And do you think I’d have done that if I’d known what was going to happen?’
‘Why didn’t you immobilize it? Or sell it?’ Holgate was genuinely curious but Walter merely looked at him, and that made him angry. ‘Was there another man?’ he asked roughly.
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘Why didn’t he immobilize it?’ Holgate asked as they went down the drive with Rosie.
‘She’d have left him,’ Sewell said.
Waiting for him in the car they passed round the photograph of the wife which he’d given them. It showed a pretty blonde in a white swimsuit posed on the edge of a pool, long legs swinging. It had been taken in Rhodes on their honeymoon.
‘A lot of make-up for a girl going swimming,’ Rosie commented. ‘Is there a man in this?’
‘You mean a proper man?’ Holgate asked.
‘Walter didn’t make a good impression,’ Sewell told Rosie, and related how the interview had gone. ‘Did you get anything from the sister?’
‘I’m not sure. She dramatizes, like a lot of girls of that age. Isa was so neurotic, according to her, that it could have been suicide, but she didn’t dwell on that, it was mentioned only once. Apparently the woman hated the country and wouldn’t be living here but she married and had to.’ Rosie looked at the photo again. ‘Looks like a party girl, doesn’t she? A lot younger than Lambert too, although Gemma insists it’s a love match. Too insistent? Not overly jealous though, I’d say, more – mildly contemptuous basically.’ Sewell was staring at her and she fidgeted. ‘Gemma maintains everyone said the woman would crash the MG eventually. No surprises really.’
‘Funny household,’ Sewell muttered. ‘I can’t imagine any man being so gutless he has absolutely no influence over his wife.’
‘It was you said she’d have left him,’ Holgate pointed out. ‘It was blackmail, of a sort: if you don’t let me do what I want, I’m going home to Mum. Or another fellow.’
Sewell pursed his lips. ‘So all the feeling was on his side.’
Rosie held up the photo. ‘She looks available. I don’t see this woman driving around on her own. Did you ask if there was another guy?’
‘Not to his knowledge, he said.’
‘That’s not an answer.’ A movement in a mirror caught her eye. ‘Watch it, here he is.’
Walter came down the drive having talked to his superior and explained why he wasn’t coming in to work. He climbed in the car and Holgate started up, taking him to Bailrigg to identify his wife. Rosie asked about Gemma and he said she would go down to the tearoom; Miss Salkeld would look after her until he returned. Making conversation Sewell asked about the family background; little sisters didn’t usually live with married brothers. Without exhibiting any emotion he told them about the earthquake and the death of his father and Gemma’s mother. He and Gemma had inherited Borrans between them and, since it was the family home and Walter had never moved out, they went on much as before except that he married. Sewell asked no further questions but Rosie was left thinking that Walter was a good catch: steady job, decent salary, valuable house; that bread cupboard alone must be worth thousands. With a big garden and Lakeland prices you were probably looking at a property in the region of a quarter of a million. Yes, a good catch. What was Isa’s background?
Gemma waited until the police car left and then she went down and closed the gate. Walter’s Nissan was still blocking the drive so she pushed the seat forward, got in and reversed into the garage. She sat for a moment frowning at the bright garden beyond the dark frame of the doorway, idly running her hands round the steering wheel, wondering how long they were going to keep him, realizing that they would come back with him because he’d gone in their car.
She went in the house, replaced the Glenlivet, smelled the tumbler, grimaced, and took it to the kitchen. Automatically she made toast and ate it standing at the sink looking out at the bronze wallflowers below the cream broom. The air was heavy with scent and loud with birdsong.
She went upstairs and along the passage to what had been her parents’ room, then Walter’s and Isa’s. He had pulled up the duvet and she lifted the far corner to reveal Isa’s red nightie edged with something simulating swans-down. His striped pyjamas were neatly folded on the other side of the bed. This was the only feature of the room approaching order. Clothes were tossed over chairs and a pair of feathered mules looked as if they had been kic
ked across the room. There were two mahogany wardrobes against the wall. She pawed through one and knew immediately what was missing: the Wranglers and the pink T-shirt Isa had been wearing when she’d walked in on them yesterday: her and Martin Blamire.
Gemma sat on the flounced stool in front of the incongruous modern dressing table and stared at the lipsticks, the brushes and pencils, the palette of shimmering eyeshadows, the cream blusher: everything dropped rather than laid down. Carefully she began to tidy up.
When she’d finished, had gone downstairs to drink a glass of milk and returned to go through Walter’s wardrobe, she shut the front door and went through the garden to Jollybeard.
Cooper rose from the window sill with arched back, stretching, greeting her with a silent mew.
‘I’m not opening just for the morning,’ Eleanor told her as she came in the kitchen. ‘It’s the inquest this afternoon.’
Gemma gaped. ‘It can’t be! They’ve only just found – Oh!’ Eleanor evinced mild surprise. One expected odd pronouncements from Gemma – who gulped and said flatly, ‘You haven’t heard.’
‘Heard what?’ Eleanor stiffened.
‘Isa. She crashed through the wall at Waterhouses.’
‘And? Gemma, she’s not – Is she?’ Gemma nodded. ‘Oh, my dear. Sit down. I’ll make tea.’
‘Don’t fuss. I’ve known for ages. The police came hours ago. They’ve taken – they’ve run Walter to town to identify her.’
‘Poor Walter.’ Eleanor sighed deeply. ‘She was alone – of course.’
‘Yes. She couldn’t undo her seat belt evidently.’
Eleanor looked at Cooper but she wasn’t seeing him. ‘I never saw her wearing a seat belt,’ she said, apparently without thought.
‘She fastened it when she remembered. She wouldn’t want to be stopped, would she, driving without a licence? No way.’
