‘No, I don’t want a cup of tea, thank you. Rubbish stuff from that bleddy urn here. Need a new one if you ask me, only the estate manager disagrees, penny-pinching so and so. I’d like to see him deal with all the complaints when we do the bingo and the tea parties for the—
‘Yes. Back to the points in question. I don’t have all day either.
‘No, I wasn’t on a walkabout that afternoon. Only bleddy idiots would be out galivanting in that. You could smell the storm coming in. And they were all caught out in it weren’t they, Sam and Christie, and that John from the gardens – his missus, and Maisie Willis who used to come with her mother, and that blonde maid who was staying at Falcon and—
‘No, of course I didn’t see them all. I’ve not got eyes in the back of my neck. It’s just what people have been saying in the pub, that’s all. But I tell you what I think. I’d look to that youth from Falcon if I were you. Kit. 293
‘Because most murders are committed by lovers, them’s the facts. And it’d not be an islander. I’d lay my life on that. I know everyone who works here like my own family. Inside and out. Not one of them – couldn’t be. Not even one of the young ’uns. Bound to be one of the blow-ins.
‘Definitely not an accident, no. She was just too canny that maid, that’s why.
‘No, there’s nothing espercifically he did that made me suspect him. But he was her boyfriend. I’ve seen all them programmes about it. Crimes of passion they calls ’em. Was always that way. And they’d had a big falling-out the night before, Hannah and her bloke, so they says. I saw some of that, what she was up to. Kissing sailors in the Old Ship. The usual. Then she’d been with young Vlad all night by all accounts.
‘You can’t teach a leopard new spots.
‘Her. That’s who I mean. She’s the leopard. Always a bit of a wild child, Hannah. And so what? Enjoy yourself while you can, I says.
‘That’s sexism that, calling her flighty. She was just having fun.
‘Jealousy. It’s a pretty good motive, don’t you think? Although it’s not for me to tell you your jobs.
‘Of course he’d be rushing round like a blue-arsed fly asking all and sundry if they’d seen her. That’d be a good cover story, wouldn’t it? Of course he’d be out searching day and night. He did her in and then felt guilty, I reckon.
‘He might have had a go at his mother too. No love lost between them pair. For all her airs and graces, I reckon Beatrice Wallace is a fall-down drunk.
‘Listen. When you’ve been on this earth as long as I have, 294young man, then you can tell me about supposition and lack of evidence. You get a proper feel for people, that’s why. And Hannah was good as gold, that girl, and he was proper jealous, I could feel it and—
‘Okay. Well, I’ll be off then.’
Miss Elisabeth makes her way to the pub from the community centre. As she walks she thinks it through again. Ruminating, that’s what she’s doing.
Always made her awkward, people questioning her. Like her mother and father giving her the third degree if she’d been naughty. Long time ago now, all that.
He’d been very rude to her the day after they reckon it happened, the youth, Kit. He’d almost had her over, rushing by like that, running out of the Estate Office. Suspicious, it was. There was something wrong, she could tell. His face looked like bone. And no apology. He’d been up to something right enough. She could smell it on him.
And you should always trust your instincts. Miss Elisabeth used to watch all those programmes with them clever ones: Ironside, Miss Marple, Columbo, although he was a scruffy beggar. It’s the hunches, that’s what they call it.
The further away she gets from the community centre and the police and the questions, the better she feels. By the time she’s rounding the corner to New Grimsby, Miss Elisabeth feels in a very good mood, almost skittish. A blooming magical day. Proper ansom. She could skip.
That bleddy C word. It required the trek over to the big city. Too busy, Truro. Turned out it was only a calcified cyst in her 295breast. Non-maligernant they told her. Nothing to worry about. Not the cancer. Thank the Lord. She’d written in the book in the church asking for prayers and it worked a treat.
It was a premonition of the cold breath of death, no more, no less. But she’s prepared now. She has steeled herself.
The poor maid probably didn’t have time to do that. Taken before her time. Still a lot to achieve. Lovely maid, Hannah. Didn’t talk down to you like some of the bleddy young ’uns.
Most murders are committed by men – it was in all those programmes; them’s the facts. Husbands, lovers, boyfriends. That’s who they should be questioning, that tall lad, Kit.
His girlfriend, his mother, and the blonde – he did for them all, she reckons.