by Gwen Moffat
‘She went on in Dwayne’s Land Rover. Dwayne lent it to Martin. Why did he do that? What hold did Martin have over him?’
Gemma snorted, distracted. ‘Just a scam here and there like tax fraud, not declaring income, nothing important.’
‘And there was yourself. You’re under age.’
She shrugged. ‘We were friends just.’
‘That’s it.’ Miss Pink nodded, satisfied. ‘Two men, each with something on the other, and you and Isa in the middle.’ Gemma glowered. ‘Martin has a computer,’ Miss Pink went on, thinking aloud. ‘He’ll have a printer?’
‘Of course. Jean uses it; she writes –’
‘Was he besotted?’ Miss Pink wasn’t listening. ‘Did she persuade him, blackmail him – or did he hate … Had Eleanor annoyed him? Or damaged him in some way?’
‘What are you on about? What’s Eleanor got to do with anything?’
‘Nothing – much.’ Miss Pink was stunned; she had been talking aloud to a child of fifteen, speculating on blackmail and murder – well, murder by extension. ‘What I’m trying to do,’ she said, casting about, trying to restore some sense of balance, ‘is discover who was behind the salmonella hoax. You remember: forged letters to people and the local paper saying that there was an outbreak of food poisoning centred on Jollybeard? That forgery was done on a computer so I’m considering those people who had access to one.’
Gemma was intrigued. ‘OK, so Isa could have blackmailed – no, she had nothing on him – could have persuaded Martin to forge the letters. Isa hated Eleanor because Eleanor said she was a jumped-up little tart’ – Gemma caught Miss Pink’s expression – ‘all right then, a gold-digger. But what’s that got to do with murder?’
And that was the question.
‘I’ve brought you a visitor,’ Rosie said, much amused at finding the old lady dozing under the silver birches. ‘Detective Inspector Gibson.’
Miss Pink was embarrassed; dropping off in the daytime was something she associated with old age. To make it worse he was studying her as if she were a rare breed of bird. He was a muscular young fellow with prematurely grey hair. He looked like a nice dog freshly clipped. She started to rise, mumbling about tea.
‘I’ll make it in a minute,’ Rosie said. ‘You sit down.
‘Oh yes?’ Miss Pink was wary. ‘You’ve got bad news.’
‘No, it’s just that I don’t want to miss this.’
Mystification deepened. Miss Pink turned back to the man. ‘I’ve been talking to DCI Tyndale,’ he told her. ‘You’ve been holding back on us, ma’am.’ Tyndale? ‘Four years back,’ he reminded her: ‘you found a child’s skeleton in the peat above Orrdale.’[*]
‘Of course! I remember Mr Tyndale – he was only Inspector then.’ She hesitated. ‘And how did my name come to be mentioned? You don’t know me.’ But her eyes came round to Rosie.
‘Sergeant Winder mentioned that your interest in the case was …’ He was at a loss.
‘Suspicious,’ Rosie supplied. ‘You took more interest than an ordinary tourist would, and it wasn’t ghoulish. In fact, the kind of interest you showed was more like a suspect’s.’
‘The criminal mind,’ she murmured, then firmly: ‘I’m going to have a drink and so shall you.’
They drank cold lager and she sketched the salient points of the Orrdale murders for them. ‘Unsavoury,’ she concluded. ‘Murders involving small children leave scars for decades, weeping sores in some cases. With some people they never heal, and small wonder.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Fortunately no children are involved here.’ But she was disconcerted by her own statement.
‘Gemma?’ Rosie suggested.
‘Actually I was thinking of young Bobby but – no. He’s terrified of death, not murder.’
‘Is he?’ Rosie was intrigued. ‘What’s the difference?’
‘Now you are not to go to Sunder asking questions; you’ll only exacerbate the situation. What happened was that the boy found Phoebe Metcalf’s hat. But it’s only because it’s a dead person’s hat that he’s frightened, it has nothing to do with Isa’s murder.’
‘How old is he?’ Gibson asked.
‘Eight. And he’s a nervous child so it’s not a good idea to upset him.’ She was stern.
‘He’s too young to have had anything to do with the murder?’
‘Far too young.’
‘Why didn’t he turn in the hat?’ Rosie asked.
‘He didn’t know it was important, that it was Phoebe’s. Eleanor told me she hadn’t seen Phoebe wearing it.’
‘There you are, you see!’ Rosie turned to Gibson. ‘Like I said: she finds things out; we knew nothing about that hat.’
He nodded. ‘You must have talked to everyone, ma’am. Did you learn anything about Mrs Lambert’s activities, like names of boyfriends?’
‘There were none other than Blamire. The stories about promiscuity originated with Gemma.’ He showed no surprise. ‘You knew,’ she said, adding carefully, choosing her words, ‘Is Blamire still in Bailrigg?’
‘No, he’s at home’ – their heads turned automatically to the screen of birches but they were too far away to see or hear any sign of life from next door. ‘With his wife,’ Gibson added meaningly.
Miss Pink took a moment to catch on. ‘You considered her? The jealous wife? How could that be? Jean didn’t know about her husband’s affair until after Isa died.’
‘He puts it differently. According to him he’d already confessed to her. He had to, Isa was becoming tiresome. You look doubtful, ma’am; you don’t think a man would kill his lover because she was embarrassing him?’
‘There are stronger motives … But I’m puzzled because Jean told me she didn’t know until after the murder.’
‘That’s exactly what she would say. If she didn’t know then she had no reason to kill the woman.’
Miss Pink pondered this. ‘And if she didn’t know, it gives her husband a motive for murder: to silence Isa if she was threatening to tell his wife.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not enough, not with these characters. The man has charm, he could have talked Jean round. She’s very loyal, she’s been protecting him; whether he’s a killer or only a suspect, she’s the kind of rather silly woman – I have to say it – who’ll stand by her husband come hell or high water. You see the same thing with battered wives – not that there’s any indication of that here, even though he’s said to have a hair-trigger temper.’ She regarded Gibson doubtfully. ‘Have you considered that Isa might have been a threat for some reason other than sexual?’
‘She had something on him? Something else?’
‘The salmonella.’ He was bemused. She explained about the hoax and how it was only today that she had realized how it might have been accomplished. ‘Isa could have picked up a letterhead from another Council when she was in her husband’s office, could have taken it to Blamire and he forged the hoax letter.’ Rosie was frowning, Gibson looked sceptical. ‘No.’ She agreed with their unspoken criticism. ‘It won’t do. You don’t kill someone because she could expose a hoax.’
‘What else have you discovered, ma’am?’ Gibson appeared to dismiss the salmonella.
She had to admit that she’d learned nothing that might have a bearing on the murder, nothing that they hadn’t discovered for themselves. Dead sheep weren’t worthy of mention in this context, and as for Bobby’s parentage, that had nothing to do with the police. There was one matter to be cleared up: the whereabouts of Phoebe’s camera, and in that respect it was possible that Bobby did enter the picture. Not the Lambert murder of course but Phoebe’s – death. And not for the first time, an impulse fired in Miss Pink’s brain, triggered by those words: Phoebe’s death.
‘It don’t matter who asks him,’ Misella said, ‘me or Sherrel. He’s no thief.’
She sat in a sturdy rocking chair outside her back door, the baby on her lap, rocking gently, her eyes passing vacantly over the little ones playing with colouring books, returning to Miss Pink. Flora st
ood at her side, twisting one leg round the other, serious and intent.
‘He’s not in any kind of trouble,’ Miss Pink assured the grandmother. ‘He only picked it up. In fact I’ll offer a reward.’
‘Why’s it that important?’
‘I need to know who it belongs to. It had little animals on the front.’ She didn’t look at Flora who pulled at her nan’s skirt. Absently Misella bent to hear the urgent whisper while Miss Pink affected to take an interest in a small plane droning overhead.
Misella straightened and pursed her lips. ‘Where is it?’ she asked.
Flora shook her head. ‘He moved un.’
‘Where’s Bobby now?’
‘Up to Uncle Jake’s again.’
‘Then he’s not to know who found it. You fetch it here and Miss Pink will give you the reward.’
‘How much?’
‘A pound,’ Miss Pink said smartly.
Flora darted away round the end of the cottage. ‘Coal hole,’ Misella observed.
Bobby had put it in a plastic bag to keep it clean. Miss Pink handled it carefully although it could surely tell no stories after the lapse of time; the inside bore no traces, not even a hair as far as she could tell without her reading glasses, only Phoebe’s name – no, figures on the underside of the pale grey visor. It looked like a car registration and was vaguely familiar if only because it was a local number. She handed Flora the agreed reward.
‘Is it only worth a pound?’ Misella asked innocently. Miss Pink reached for her wallet and produced a five-pound note. She was lost in speculation, so much so that she had reached the gate before she remembered the other matter. She came back. Flora had disappeared.
‘Did he find a camera?’ she asked.
‘Never! That I would have known. Flo! Come back here!’
Feet padded on stairs. Flora appeared, looking wary.
‘Did our Bobby find a camera?’ Misella asked, but the child shook her head violently. Misella turned back to Miss Pink. ‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything,’ she said with meaning, but it was obvious that if Flora knew anything more she would have said so; the child was bright enough to know that if the surrender of a hat could produce six pounds, a camera would be worth a fortune.
In the Blamires’ garden the four occupants were not enjoying the balmy evening. Jean was livid with anger but doing her utmost to contain it in the presence of Gibson and Rosie Winder. She railed at Martin: ‘You’re telling me she came in my house and used the computer? She was upstairs –’ She stopped herself, nauseated by the image of Isa in Elfhow’s bedrooms.
‘It was only a computer,’ Martin protested. ‘I couldn’t refuse a neighbour the use of it, now could I?’
Jean was stricken. Rosie felt sorry for her, learning that her husband had actually brought his lover to the house, probably using the marital bed in his wife’s absence. The computer was just a handy excuse; if Jean was the killer it was her husband she should have wasted, not the other woman.
Gibson was on his own tack. ‘It was Mrs Lambert who forged the letters then?’ Martin had denied all knowledge of the salmonella hoax.
The man shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I wasn’t interested. She could have been printing blackmail letters for all I knew.’
‘Who would she have blackmailed?’
‘God knows. That was just a suggestion: a shot in the dark.’
Jean’s eyes were going from one to the other, stunned with disbelief.
‘This is shocking,’ Rosie told her, speaking quietly as if they were alone: two women sharing confidences. Gibson stiffened and Martin rounded on her, but it was Jean who said feelingly, ‘I just can’t believe it: here in my own house!
‘You knew,’ Martin said. ‘It’s the invasion of your territory you’re objecting to.’
‘I’m objecting to –’ She checked. ‘I didn’t know,’ she muttered. ‘That’s the trouble.’ She addressed Gibson with a forlorn attempt at dignity: ‘My world’s changed in the last few days; I don’t know where I am.’
‘Perhaps we should have a cup of tea,’ Rosie said.
Jean burst into frenzied laughter, saw their expressions, and stopped. ‘A brandy would be more welcome,’ she gasped.
Martin went indoors. Jean said to Rosie, ‘Two days ago I was a normal housewife with everything going for me: husband, home, parents close by. Now I’m shattered. It’s just one shock after another.’
‘You accepted the affair,’ Gibson murmured.
‘You’re mad.’ It was unemphatic, no more than a fact.
‘You’d known all along.’
‘He told me two days ago. Actually he’d skirted round it the day before but then he said only that she’d tried to seduce him – very crudely. Who says I knew?’
‘He does.’
‘Ah.’ She had raged, had controlled the rage, had appeared hopeless and helpless, now they watched her relax. She breathed deeply and regularly, her face softened and the heavy, somewhat masculine features were transformed. She became a handsome beauty. She blinked and it was as if she had closed the door on a bad scene. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I knew. I tried to kid myself that I could block it out but you can’t; wives always know although they swear they don’t. It’s the little things: a long hair that’s not your colour, a smell – she used some cheap scent – absences, lies …’ Martin was standing beside her with a brandy snifter. ‘When they’re besotted they can’t hide it,’ she told Gibson.
‘What’s this?’ Eleanor asked, peering, not taking the hat in her greasy hands.
‘It’s a registration number.’
‘I can see that. It’s Dwayne Paxton’s Land Rover. Turn it over. Why, it’s Phoebe’s hat that she brought back from Alaska. What’s Dwayne’s number doing on it? Where d’you find it?’
Miss Pink collapsed rather than sat. Eleanor was concerned. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit pale.’
‘I’m hungry.’ She was also exhausted. ‘I forget when I last ate and this’ – indicating the hat – ‘is the last straw. I’m being crowded.’
Eleanor had her priorities straight. She bustled about the kitchen, filling the kettle, warming soup, assembling smoked salmon sandwiches. Miss Pink propped her head on her hands, her eyelids drooping, brightening up as a cup of coffee appeared in front of her.
She drank the soup, ate the sandwiches, was fortified with more coffee and all the time Eleanor pretended to occupy herself with unnecessary tasks, waiting for the other woman to come back to life. At the end of the scratch supper she offered a drink but Miss Pink said that alcohol would knock her out, she would go to her bed. Eleanor eyed the hat, upside down on the table, the registration number compelling attention.
Miss Pink said, ‘Bobby found it in the beck. What I’m wondering is, has he found the camera? I’m hoping Misella will find out.’
Eleanor studied the visor. ‘When did Phoebe write that? Could she have met Dwayne on the hill?’
‘And there are her binoculars,’ Miss Pink mused: ‘they’re missing. No one thought of those. You think she could have met Dwayne on Gowk Pass? Why should she make a note of his number?’
‘Her memory was going.’
‘All the same, she’d know the number of local cars.’
‘She couldn’t remember her own.’
‘Really?’ Miss Pink frowned. ‘Well, she was old … so she wrote it down because she needed to remember it … But she could recognize people?’
‘Oh yes, she wasn’t gaga. It was just figures, rather like Bobby but at opposite ends of the lifespan as it were. I see, you’re thinking that if she’d seen Dwayne himself she wouldn’t have needed to make a note of the number. She’d have recognized him, and so it had to be his Land Rover.’
‘She didn’t see him.’ Miss Pink spoke slowly, marshalling her thoughts. ‘Only his truck parked where it shouldn’t be? Or she saw it from a distance … no, then she wouldn’t have been able to read the number plate.’
‘She saw the vehicle and the n
umber, but not the driver?’
‘Possibly – but when?’
‘She’d have told me about it.’ Eleanor was decisive. ‘She couldn’t keep anything to herself, that was her problem: altogether too outspoken.’
‘So you’ve said, and everyone else, including Swinburn. Now I wonder if she saw him up to something naughty on the hill –’
‘It’s not Swinburn’s number –’
‘Right, forget Swinburn. But you’re saying that if she didn’t tell you what led up to this’ – gesturing to the visor – ‘then she must have printed it on the Sunday that she died – unless you didn’t see her on the Saturday.’
‘She called in Saturday evening, which was usual: to tell me where she was going next day.’
‘So she met – or saw – Dwayne on top.’
‘On top of what?’ Rosie asked from the doorway. Gibson loomed behind her.
Miss Pink introduced him. Rosie eyed the hat. ‘Dwayne Paxton’s Land Rover,’ she observed, impressing the two women with her photographic memory.
As Eleanor served coffee Miss Pink sketched the story, giving the police the impression that the hat had been willingly surrendered.
‘Could Bobby have printed that number?’ Rosie asked.
‘No, he’s dyslexic. That’s an adult hand, it’s too uniform for a child who has trouble with his figures.’
‘When you said Dwayne was on top,’ Gibson put in, ‘you meant on top of where?’
‘I was assuming he was somewhere near the route that Phoebe was following the day she died, simply because she made a note of his number.’
Eleanor explained why she was sure that had been done on the Sunday. ‘But she drowned,’ Gibson pointed out. ‘Are you suggesting that there was something suspicious about that death?’
‘There’s a mystery. What made her print that number? It was done not long before she – died.’
They contemplated the hat. ‘She was out of doors when she did it,’ Rosie said. ‘There was no other writing material available.’
‘She had the map,’ Eleanor said. ‘She was a very prudent lady – on the hill; she always carried a map even though she knew these fells backwards.’
