by Gwen Moffat
‘I heard about it in town,’ Martin said as Jean brought him a bottle of Budweiser. ‘I’m only surprised it didn’t happen before, the way she went through the village. I told her she’d kill one of the Sunder kids if she didn’t watch it.’
‘Gemma told me.’
‘Told you – what?’
‘That you were giving her stick for driving without a licence.’
‘When was this?’
‘After you’d gone to town. Eleanor called and asked me to give Gemma lunch. She was all on her own, Marty, wasn’t that cruel? The police took Walter away and left the child alone in the house! Can you believe that? They’re heartless – and there was a woman with them too.’
He was astounded. ‘They’ve arrested Walter?’
‘No! I didn’t say that. They took him to town to identify the body. Naturally. They’ve brought him back. Why on earth would they arrest him?’
‘Gemma came here to tell you that?’
‘She came for company basically. Eleanor had to go to the inquest so Gemma came here. She’s taking it very well, too well perhaps. But then, like you said, it didn’t come as a surprise to anyone, a shock yes, but not a surprise.’
‘I tried but I had no influence.’
‘You wouldn’t, would you? We’re just neighbours. If her own family couldn’t cope with her no one could. I never realized that Isa travelled so far in that car. Gemma says she often goes – went – to Carlisle. Except that there seems to be some doubt about that. It looks as if Isa could have been meeting someone on the quiet. The way Gemma tells it Isa comes over as very immature. Did you think that?’
He hesitated, then, ‘She was a nutter. Immature and neurotic. I had a bit of a set-to with her one time – nothing to get upset about’ – as Jean registered amazement – ‘she wanted me to teach her to drive. I refused. She didn’t like it.’
‘You didn’t tell me!’
‘It was unpleasant.’ He grimaced. ‘I wanted to forget about it – and you’d be worried. After all, we live next door, and I was sorry for Walter, married to her.’
‘Marty, what are you trying to say?’
He looked so helpless that she had to laugh. ‘Darling! She made a pass at you?’ She had forgotten that the woman was dead.
‘Worse.’ He shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘She threatened me. Look, what happened was that she told me Walter shouted at her when he was trying to teach her to drive, and she ended in tears, so I felt sorry for her – at first. I did go for a spin with her; I drove the MG out to the old firing range and handed the wheel over to her. She was so bloody incompetent I told her she’d have to enrol at a professional driving school, I wasn’t having anything to do with it. So she tried to seduce me.’
‘How?’
‘How?’ His temper flared. ‘What the fuck do you think she did?’
‘Marty! It was a natural question.’
His face smoothed out but his eyes were cold. He licked his lips. ‘You want all the details?’
‘Well, there couldn’t be many.’ She gulped. ‘Not really. You made – she made a pass. That’s it?’
He held her eye. ‘She pulled her skirt up. She wasn’t wearing any knickers. I got out of the car and told her to drive herself home, I’d sooner walk.’
‘You left her there and you say she couldn’t drive! Marty, the woman was deranged!’
‘There was a stand-off. She said if I walked away she’d accuse me of rape. I said she couldn’t, there was no evidence. She said attempted rape then. I said I’d drive her home but if she made any accusation against me I’d come back with a counter accusation. I said there had to be more guys around who’d come out of the woodwork once I went public.’ His voice dropped. ‘But I did tell her to get psychiatric help.’
‘All this and you never said a word.’
‘Why should I? It would have made bad feeling between neighbours. But that woman hated me. You could see it in her eyes. Now what are you frowning at?’
‘I was thinking of Gemma and Walter. She’s insisting him and Isa were in love. Gemma has to know all about her own sister-in-law; they were close in age, they lived under the same roof.’
‘You reckon.’
‘I see now.’ She was thoughtful. ‘She’s trying to protect her brother. The husband’s always the first suspect.’ She was suddenly frightened. ‘What am I saying? Marty, suppose Isa’s death wasn’t an accident?’
Rosie Winder was lost in admiration. ‘That looks exotic. What is it?’
‘Pheasant in a chanterelle sauce.’ Eleanor preened herself. ‘And if you so much as look …’ This to Cooper who was pirouetting about their legs in an ecstasy of anticipation. ‘I had to defrost it inside a cold oven,’ she told Rosie, ‘otherwise he’d have been in the window and stolen a breast just for the fun of it. Couldn’t eat it till it was thawed of course.’
‘You go away and leave your windows open?’ Rosie was appalled.
‘This is Borascal, my dear. Everyone knows his neighbour’s business so they know there’s nothing to steal at Jollybeard. But then,’ she added quickly, ‘there’s no petty theft here.’ She regarded Rosie fixedly, conveying a message. ‘The mothers are very strict.’
‘I haven’t seen any children.’
‘One family only, and if there were any naughty children in it I wouldn’t leave my windows open.’
‘How different to the city.’ Rosie sighed. ‘Even to the town.’
Eleanor shrugged. ‘Will you stay for supper? Miss Pink is coming down.’
‘I’d love to but really I just called because I was passing, to let you know Walter’s back and Gemma’s with him.’
‘Thank you. I’m taking a casserole to Borrans to save them cooking.’ The exchange was stilted. If the woman wasn’t staying to eat, why did she linger? ‘I expect you’re dying for a cup of tea,’ Eleanor stated heavily. ‘Or would you prefer a proper drink?’
‘That would be nice,’ Rosie said, startling Eleanor, who thought that the police didn’t drink on duty. She considered the cooking whisky, dismissed it and produced a bottle of Talisker.
‘Isa could have been drunk,’ Rosie murmured.
‘No, she didn’t drink.’
‘She was full of whisky, and Walter’s missing the best part of a bottle of Glenlivet. Did you see her using a seat belt?’
‘Never.’ It was jerked out of Eleanor: an automatic response. She was disorientated, first by the information and then by the question.
‘That’s what Walter says but Gemma says she did wear one.’
Eleanor clutched the bottle of malt to her chest. ‘She’d wear one on the main road,’ she said weakly.
‘Her mother will be able to fill some gaps. They’ve gone to inform her. I’ll know more when I get back to the station. Did you know her mother?’
‘No.’ Eleanor was mesmerized. ‘I never met her. If she ever came here.’
Miss Pink walked in without knocking, redolent of talc and bonhomie, telling Rosie not to get up, eyeing the bottle. ‘Most convivial: one of my favourite tipples.’
‘How many do you have?’ Rosie asked, grinning. Miss Pink beamed, treating the question as rhetorical.
Eleanor produced another shot glass. ‘The sergeant tells me Isa was drunk,’ she stated, and it was a warning. She flashed a glance at Rosie. ‘The autopsy was very quick.’
‘It wasn’t finished when I left,’ Rosie said. ‘But as soon as they’ – she paused, glanced at Miss Pink – ‘made the incision, the fumes knocked them backwards.’
‘She was drinking alone?’ Miss Pink wondered. ‘Or with a companion?’
‘We’ve contacted her driving instructor. He had a full schedule yesterday but it didn’t include Isa.’
‘You didn’t believe her,’ Eleanor said when the woman had gone, leaving the two elderly ladies to stroll to Borrans, accompanied by the officious Cooper: ‘about the fumes of Scotch knocking the pathologist backwards.’
‘She was stretchi
ng it. Ingested material passes out of the stomach within four or five hours as I remember – wait a minute though!’ She halted. ‘Death stops the process so if she was drinking shortly before she drowned, then the whisky would still be in the stomach.’ Her glasses flashed as she looked back down the dale. ‘I suppose she did drown.’
‘You mean – alcohol poisoning?’
‘She’d still drown.’ Miss Pink was almost inaudible. She moved forward again.
‘I never saw her wearing a seat belt,’ Eleanor said. ‘And Walter told Rosie she didn’t. Gemma says she did – and Isa was strapped in when she was found.’
‘How sinister that sounds: strapped in. Gemma would say that. Young girls lead fantasy lives, some of them. Rosie Winder is intrigued, no doubt about that – and then there were those two detectives. Why is the CID investigating a road traffic accident?’
Chapter Nine
Suddenly, at eight o’clock next morning, Borascal was full of policemen: plain clothes and uniforms. Honeyman slept late but his mother saw the marked cars pass the Lamb and was the first of the residents to react with emotions ranging from trepidation to terror. Only the visitors in the holiday cottages were to view the invasion without qualms but then, sequestered as most folk were in their lush gardens, this news seemed to penetrate slowly.
They went to Borrans first and after a while Sewell and Holgate drove away with Walter. Again. Meanwhile Rosie Winder was taking Gemma down to Jollybeard – again. Other police were at the Blamires’ house, at the Lamb, and at Ashgill where Miss Pink came to the door carrying a tea towel to regard the two strange uniforms with mild surprise. They asked her if she knew Mrs Lambert. No, she said. They appeared nonplussed. ‘Not socially,’ she added. ‘I’ve met her.’
‘Did you see her on Wednesday, ma’am?’ Although she didn’t invite them in, she had presence and the courtesy leaked out.
‘Not Wednesday,’ she said. ‘Only Tuesday.’
‘Did you know her car, an MG: a sports car?’ The younger man was aware that no one of this age knew any make of car.
‘No.’ Her eyes sharpened as a police car passed her gate. ‘You’re trying to discover who saw her last. Has there been a development?’
The younger fellow opened his mouth only to be forestalled by his colleague. ‘Nothing to bother about, ma’am,’ he said firmly, implying that it needn’t concern her. ‘So you couldn’t say when she left home on Wednesday; you didn’t see, or hear the car pass?’
‘She wouldn’t pass here; Borrans is lower down the lane.’
She let them go, turning away but leaving the door open. She wasn’t surprised, ten minutes later, walking past the head of the lane, to see a marked car at the entrance to the Blamires’ place, and a uniformed figure approaching it, coming either from Borrans or one of the holiday cottages. Phoebe’s place was, as always, closed up, and bore that air of abandonment which pervades houses where the owner isn’t coming back. No one was interested in Phoebe now. She wondered why they were concentrating on Isa.
At Jollybeard it was a case of déjà vu: Eleanor and Gemma drinking coffee, Cooper on the window sill. And Walter? She dared not ask.
‘We don’t know what’s happening.’ Eleanor answered the unspoken question. ‘Rosie Winder came down with Gemma, but she wouldn’t say.’
‘Even to me!’ Gemma was savage. ‘They’ve taken him away again and no one’ll tell me why.’
‘Didn’t they tell him?’
‘No, he’d have said.’
‘We’ll find out.’ Miss Pink sounded more confident than she felt. This child was getting a raw deal. ‘The Blamires must know something; there’s a police car at the end of their drive.’
‘Really,’ Gemma breathed. ‘Really?’
‘They’ll be calling on everyone.’ Miss Pink observed her reactions with interest. ‘Door-to-door inquiries. They came to me. They’re trying to find out when Isa left the village.’ She was uneasy, well aware of the customary reason for so many officers to be deployed in order to discover when a person was last seen alive.
Gemma stood up. ‘I’ll go and ask Jean; she’ll tell me.’
‘Wait.’ Miss Pink was brusque. ‘No one will tell you anything while the police are there. Hang on till they’ve gone.’
Gemma slumped back in her chair. Eleanor looked anguished. ‘I’d welcome a cup of coffee,’ Miss Pink said, galvanizing her.
It was ten o’clock before they learned the reason for the renewed activity. Gemma had gone to the Blamires’, the police appeared to have left the village, Sherrel Lee had arrived at Jollybeard, insisting that she was feeling better, insisting on cleaning, or waiting if Eleanor were going to open up – and offhand about the police who had called at Sunder, but of course neither she nor her mother knew anything of Isa’s movements on Wednesday, nor any other day. She was washing up when the telephone rang.
Eleanor took the call in the kitchen and turned white. Sherrel clattered a saucepan in the sink and Miss Pink turned on her sharply. Eleanor was clutching the phone as if in a spasm. ‘Are they sure?’ she gasped. ‘But who could – Oh no! No, Walter, you must have – yes, yes … all right, I’m listening.’ She did so, nodding, then pulled a notepad across the counter, scrabbling frantically in a litter of papers.
Miss Pink advanced. ‘Slow down. Let me.’ She found a pen and handed it over. She watched Eleanor print a name.
‘Of course, right now,’ Eleanor cried loudly, like a person not used to the telephone. ‘I’ll ring you back – what? But they must – oh, right. Good b–’ She turned. ‘We were cut off!’ She tried to replace the phone but she was shaking so much she had to use both hands. Sherrel and Miss Pink stared, immobile.
‘Something – something was broken,’ she told them. ‘In Isa’s throat: the high – high – a bone?’
‘The hyoid,’ Miss Pink said.
‘What’s that?’ Sherrel asked, wiping her wet forehead with a tea towel. ‘What’s it mean?’
‘She was strangled.’
‘I have to call Walter’s solicitor,’ Eleanor said. ‘He wouldn’t instruct the man in front of the police, and why should he? It’s family business.’
More than that when your wife’s been strangled, Miss Pink thought. Aloud she said, ‘Sit down and take a breather before you ring him. You’ve had a shock.’ She hefted the kettle.
‘I have to do it now,’ Eleanor protested, picking up the phone. ‘He must get to the station as soon as possible before Walter says anything.’
Sherrel’s eyes were wide as she wiped a plate aimlessly. Miss Pink switched the kettle on and took the tea towel from her. She said firmly, ‘You can leave this and do upstairs: make a start on Miss Salkeld’s room.’ The girl glanced at the sink uncertainly. ‘I’ll finish here,’ Miss Pink said, the tone informing Sherrel that she was on a losing streak if she dared protest further.
Eleanor was conducting a shaky conversation, dramatizing, not for effect but for emphasis: ‘… essential you get down there immediately; he’s been accused of her murder – what? I don’t know; what’s the difference? All you have to do is tell him to say nothing – isn’t that right?’
There was a protracted pause while she listened and the distant voice yapped away. Her shoulders dropped and at length she managed a defeated, ‘I’ll be waiting for it’ and replaced the phone. ‘He’ll call me back,’ she told Miss Pink, ‘When he’s seen Walter.’
‘Walter hasn’t been charged.’
‘That’s what he said: MacLean, the solicitor. He says they need to question him because he’s the husband. Is he right?’
‘I’m afraid so. When a wife – when anyone’s murdered, the people closest are – have to be interviewed.’
‘Are suspects, that’s what you were going to say. Guilty until they’ve proved themselves innocent? That’s exactly my point: Walter could incriminate himself; he’s very naive.’
‘There may be other people who were close to her.’
‘Gemma? No. No!’
‘Not Gemma, but a lover. Or lovers.’
Eleanor sat down carefully. Cooper, aware of a possibly permissive atmosphere, jumped on the table. She ignored him. ‘Off!’ ordered Miss Pink sharply and he flattened his ears, jumped down and stalked out of the kitchen.
‘She was discreet,’ Eleanor murmured.
‘She wasn’t. She was flirting – flaunting herself in the Lamb.’
‘I don’t think she frequented the Lamb. Walter wouldn’t like it. Besides she didn’t drink.’
‘She was waiting on tables the day they were looking for Phoebe.’ Miss Pink stiffened and frowned.
‘So she was, but flirting is one thing, taking a lover is serious. If she did, she was discreet about that. And we know most of what goes on in a tiny village.’
‘Do you?’ It was loaded.
‘You live in the country yourself. You know how people talk.’
‘There’s gossip, and there are open secrets, but sexual deviances, extramarital affairs, are usually kept quiet.’
‘But people know, and a woman has only to be seen talking to the local Don Juan and it’s all round the village.’
‘And everyone knows it’s gossip. You’re saying there was no gossip about Isa?’
‘None. She was out a lot – and illegally, without a driving licence, but that was the extent of her offences. She hated Borascal so she went home to her mother. No doubt the mother will confirm that.’
Sitting in the car outside the terraced house in Carlisle Sewell said, ‘Now we’ll find out what she was hiding yesterday.’
Rosie, in a neat shirt and slacks, said, ‘There are three sons, according to Holgate, all long-distance lorry drivers. Their mother could be programmed to stay stum where vehicle offences are involved.’
‘I’m not concerned with a vehicle offence; I want to find out how much the mother knew about her daughter’s love life. Stay with the car, Dowling, and watch those kids.’
The driver took him literally, staring morosely at a group of small boys kicking a football against a brick wall at the end of the cul-de-sac. Beyond the wall loomed the bulk of a rusty gasometer.
