Chapter Twenty-Three

It was inevitable when Tim and Juliet finally met Dorothy Atkins that they should feel a sense of anti-climax. Mrs. Meredith had suggested that they should first see her through the internal observation window before she introduced them. They peered through the clouded glass and saw an elderly woman seated in one of the curious stiff high-backed chairs that are an inescapable feature of residential homes. As she was sitting down, it was difficult to estimate her height, but Tim guessed that she was taller than average, which when she was young would have been exceptionally tall for a woman. She was stooping over a coffee table on which a newspaper had been spread. Her clothes were dowdy and unfashionable: she was wearing a crimplene skirt of a curious yellow ochre hue, and a lemon-yellow high-necked blouse with a ruffle. Her rather skimpy long grey hair had been caught with grips into an indifferent ‘French roll’. The skirt was quite short – it had ridden up to show her knees – and her legs, which were encased in thickish tights, were lumpy, with fat calves and virtually no tapering to the ankles. Rather incongruously, her feet were shod in scarlet leather moccasins.

She riffled through her newspaper for a while, studiedly nonchalant, and then gave a quick sideways glance at their window. “She knows, or suspects, that you are watching,” said Mrs. Meredith. “Time to meet her properly now.”

She led the way across the polished parquet floor, the crepe soles of her flat black lace-up shoes squeaking slightly as she went. Tim and Juliet followed in single file, and Tim saw that to an acute observer they would have presented rather a comic spectacle, trouping along as if they were part of a song-and-dance routine or some other frivolous activity. However, none of the old ladies whose chairs they passed, marooned like small islands in a brown parquet sea, bothered to look up and watch them. Most appeared to be dozing. There were no old gentlemen present, at least not in this part of the vast room.

As they approached Dorothy Atkins, she seemed to be entirely engrossed in the newspaper. Mrs. Meredith waited for Tim and Juliet to catch up with her, and then tapped Dorothy gently on the shoulder. She gave a little start. It was almost too theatrical.

“Hello, Matron,” she said, emphasising the second syllable of the first word and looking up to smile beatifically into Mrs. Meredith’s face. Her eyes were blank of emotion, however. Mrs. Meredith was clearly ill-at-ease.

“T-Tirzah,” she said, almost stammering. “Here are your visitors.”

Tirzah craned her neck so that she could look past Mrs. Meredith. Her hazel eyes met Tim’s jade-coloured ones. She held out her hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said. She did not ask his name. Her voice was characterised by its low monotone and flat Lincolnshire vowels.

“Pleased to meet you, too,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it reverently. Her own was quite slender, but long-fingered and surprisingly rough to the touch. “My name is Tim Yates. I am an inspector from South Lincolnshire police.”

“Tirzah.” she said. She stared at him for a long minute. “That’s the name I always go by now. My guess is that you are familiar with my history, so I won’t take the trouble to retell it. Sit down, if you want to.” She made an all-inclusive gesture at the other two chairs that had been pulled up to her table. Tim took the one immediately opposite her. She either did not see or deliberately ignored Juliet Armstrong, whom Tim also had forgotten until she slid noiselessly into the other chair. He hesitated and cleared his throat. He wondered why the woman made him so nervous: why she had evidently made Mrs. Meredith nervous, too. Glancing round, he saw that Mrs. Meredith had strayed away to talk to an old lady swaddled in tartan blankets who had been parked in a wheelchair on the other side of the room. Perhaps she had forgotten her promise – threat? – to stay with them.

“This is DC Juliet Armstrong,” he said, after what seemed like a very long pause. Tirzah inclined her head graciously, but did not offer Juliet her hand.

While she was bowing to Juliet, Tim took the opportunity to inspect her profile more closely. On previous occasions when he had come face to face with a suspected or convicted killer, he had played a kind of game with himself, and he tried it again now. Was there anything in Dorothy Atkins’ physiognomy that marked her out as a murderer, from his own experience of them?

Her face was long and sallow, the skin more brown than olive. It was an unattractive colour, but its texture was pretty good for a woman of her age, though her cheeks sagged and loose skin hung in a fold on her neck. Her hair was rather greasy, and combed straight back from her forehead in an unattractively severe style. She wore cameo earrings in ears that looked grubby, but that might just have been an effect of her sallowness. The hazel eyes were deep-set and small, topped by heavy untidy brows that made them seem yet smaller, but they were watchful. There was a large patch of darker brown skin on her high forehead. The residue of an old wound, perhaps? He realised that she had turned away from Juliet and was observing him with a look of amusement that could easily have turned into a sneer.

“It is a disorder of the skin pigmentation, Inspector. One of the hazards of growing old.” Embarrassed, Tim looked away.

She clapped her hand on his suddenly, so that he almost cried out in alarm.

“Aren’t you going to tell me why you’ve come?”

“Yes, of course.” He made himself refrain from recoiling. It was taking her a long time to remove her hand. Juliet leaned forward to help him out.

“Mrs. Atkins, do you remember that when you still lived at home your son Hedley was going for a while out with a girl called Kathryn Sheppard?”

She snatched the hand away, slightly grazing his skin with her thick talon of a thumbnail. She looked thoughtful. Was it an act?

“Tirzah”, she said. “Please call me Tirzah. Now, what was the question?” She sounded confused, but shot Juliet a look of wicked alertness.

“Do you remember that your son once had a girlfriend called Kathryn Sheppard?”

There was a long pause.

”Not exactly,” she said at length, and with studied caution. “I remember Kathryn Sheppard, but I don’t think she was Hedley’s friend. She was someone else’s friend.”

Tim didn’t know how to respond to this cryptic utterance, but Juliet persevered.

“Whose friend? Can you remember?”

The swarthy brow clouded. She seemed to be struggling with her memory. She put her hand to her temple.

“I don’t think I do remember, exactly. It was another girl. A pretty girl. She was very slender.”

“Did you know this girl?”

“I’m sure I did.” She put both hands to her forehead. “Now, who could it have been?”

“And this girl was a friend of Kathryn’s?”

She nodded happily. “Yes. She was a very pretty girl. Kathryn was a pretty girl, too.”

“And you’re quite sure that you don’t remember her with Hedley?”

“Hedley will have known her, of course. She came to the house. She must have done, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen her. I don’t go out much, you know. But Hedley doesn’t like girls, does he?” She sniggered harshly.

“Hedley says that she was his girlfriend.”

“Hedley would say that, wouldn’t he? He doesn’t want to get found out!”

“Found out about what, Mrs. Atkins?”

“Not found out about anything, found out for what he is.”

“What is he?”

“Oh, you know!” She rolled her eyes and gave Tim’s arm a playful little push. “I didn’t much mind myself, but his father couldn’t stand the idea. Neither could she.”

“She? Do you mean Kathryn, Mrs. Atkins?”

“No, of course not. I mean her. Doris. Hedley’s grandmother. I had thought you’d come about her, you know. Whenever people talk to me, sooner or later they get on to her. I’d rather you didn’t call me ‘Mrs. Atkins’, by the way. Atkins was her name, though she was always a ‘Miss’. I’m Tirzah.”

“Do you want to talk about Doris?” Tim butted in.

“If you like. But I don’t really have anything to say. She shouldn’t have liked gardening so much. Then it wouldn’t have happened.”

“We haven’t come to upset you . . .” Tim began, aware that Mrs. Meredith had returned and was hovering in the background.

“Oh, I’m not upset. Doris made me famous. I can’t think why. She was such an insignificant person herself. There was such a fuss about it all. And the irony of it was, I quite liked her. I had no reason not to get on with her. She was very clear-sighted about Ronald, for one thing.”

Tim was aware of some movement behind Tirzah. He looked up to see Mrs. Meredith signalling to him quite energetically.

“Change the subject,” she mouthed. He nodded.

“So you have no specific memories of Kathryn Sheppard that might help us, Mrs. . . . Tirzah?”

“I’m afraid not. Just another pretty girl. There are so many pretty girls, don’t you find, Inspector?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Tim, bewildered once more. He felt frustrated. It seemed impossible to lead this disjointed conversation into coherence. There was a prolonged silence. Then Dorothy spoke again. Her voice was harder now, her tone venomous.

“There is something you can do for me, if you would be so kind,” she said.

“Of course, if we are able. What is it that you would like?”

“Since you are clearly in touch with him, you can tell that scapegrace son of mine to come and see me. He owes it to me. He knows that he does. He can’t get away with hiding forever.”

“What is he hiding from, Tirzah?”

“The same thing. The thing that I told you about before. But hiding doesn’t work. He has to face up to it.”

Once again Mrs. Meredith signalled frantically. She was shaking her head. This time Tim felt irritated. He supposed he must bow to her superior understanding of what Dorothy Atkins could take, and he certainly didn’t wish to provoke an outburst of some kind; but if he were to be steered away from asking any really pertinent questions, the interview would simply be a waste of time.

“Such a ninny isn’t she?” said Tirzah sardonically in a low, confidential voice.

“Who?” asked Tim, startled and a little disorientated. Was she speaking of the past as if it were the present? Did she mean Juliet? Or was she harking back to Doris Atkins, or even Kathryn Sheppard?

“That Meredith woman,” said Tirzah, jerking her thumb behind her without looking round. “Always hanging around, trying to wrap us in cotton wool.” She raised her voice. “It was a bit late for cotton wool, my dear, by the time I got myself in here.”

Mrs. Meredith looked uncomfortable. Despite himself, Tim had to suppress a grin.

He thought it unlikely that he would manage to extract any more from Dorothy Atkins today.

“Well thank you very much, Tirzah,” he said, rising and touching her hand, which was once again clutching a balled-up piece of her cardigan. “You’ve been very helpful. Perhaps you will not mind if I come to see you again?”

“You can if you like. I’m not sure what use it was, either to you or to me. But it is quite nice to have visitors.” She nodded at Juliet, who had also got to her feet. “She doesn’t say much, does she? What’s the matter, dear, cat got your tongue?”

Mrs. Meredith had already slipped out of the room. Tim and Juliet followed her quietly, so they did not make the same spectacle of themselves as when they had entered it. When they reached the swing doors, Tim looked back at Dorothy. She had folded her newspaper neatly into four, and was looking at the crossword. She appeared to be absorbed, but he sensed that she was still acutely aware of their presence. He thought that a slight smile hovered on her thin lips, but he might have imagined it. The interview had left him feeling that he might have imagined anything – that anyone, in fact, might have imagined anything – about this woman, and would have had an equal chance of either getting close to the truth or straying a million miles from it.

He repeated this thought a couple of minutes later, when he and Juliet were back with Mrs. Meredith in her office.

“Well,” he said, “what did you make of that? I’m absolutely none the wiser!”

She looked at him guardedly.

“What did you make of it?” she asked.

“She was much more confused than I had expected. Vague, somehow. As if she wasn’t quite in control. I’m sure that you’re right when you say that she can be very manipulative. It just didn’t show itself today, that’s all. Perhaps she has off days. She’s quite old now, after all.”

Mrs. Meredith looked amused.

“If that’s what you think, Inspector. Personally I am convinced that she was stringing you along. Ars est celare artem where Tirzah is concerned. You might find it useful not to forget that.”

“You think she was putting it on?” said Tim. “The confused little old lady act? If you’re right, she was amazing.”

“She is amazing, in her own way. Besides, she’s a good observer. She has plenty of role models to show her how to play the confused elderly female. She’ll do it again next time you see her now. You’ll have to trick her into giving herself away.”

“How will we do that?”

“The best way is to make her angry. But not so angry that she either loses her temper or withdraws into herself.”

As Tim and Juliet were walking back to his car, he suddenly paused and turned to face her.

“She’s given us one lead, anyway,” he said. “Hedley Atkins. He’s been co-operative so far, but no-one’s put him under any pressure. He’s simply been asked some routine stuff about Kathryn Sheppard. I think we need to press him a bit more about the past – and about his sister in particular. And we need to find out more about her, too.”