A snub-nosed Morris van was parked on the road outside the house. Its freshly washed black bodywork contrasted sharply with the white stripes that had been painted round the edges of its mudguards to comply with the blackout regulations. The words “Empire Office Services” and the company’s address were also painted neatly in white on the side panel, together with a telephone number on the Maryland exchange, creating an impression of orderly professionalism far removed from the scene Jago and Cradock had encountered at the company’s offices.
“Looks as though George is home,” said Cradock.
“Yes,” said Jago. “Now, I don’t want you asking him whether he’s a bigamist or whether he’s got two fingers missing because he’s really someone else, or any other clever questions like that. We don’t want to frighten Mrs Fletcher unnecessarily, and if all that’s true I’d like to keep it up our sleeves for the time being. Understood?”
“Yes, guv’nor.”
At a nod from Jago, Cradock leaned forward to knock on the door. They heard footsteps pacing down the hall behind it, and it opened a crack to reveal George Fletcher, still in his work suit.
“Come in,” he said, looking down the street to left and right. “I hope you won’t make a habit of this. The company don’t like me taking time off in the daytime, and if the neighbours get wind of the fact that you’re police there’ll be rumours flying up and down this road like nobody’s business. A bit toffee-nosed, some of them. You know the sort.”
He ushered them in and closed the door behind them.
“Come on through. My wife will put the kettle on.”
“Thank you, Mr Fletcher.”
They sat in the living room, on the sofa as before, and waited until Susan Fletcher arrived with a tray bearing tea in dainty china cups and saucers which she set on an occasional table beside them.
“So, what can we do for you?” asked Fletcher. “I’m hoping this won’t take long – I’ve got to get back to work.”
“We’ll be as quick as we can,” said Jago. “We’d just like to ask a few more questions about your sister-in-law.”
He took a spoonful of sugar from the sugar bowl and stirred it into his cup, then turned to Susan.
“Very kind of you, Mrs Fletcher. This is such a nice house. Your husband was telling me you inherited it from your parents.”
Susan shot a glance at her husband. Jago thought he detected both surprise and irritation in her expression.
“Don’t look at me like that,” said Fletcher. “He already knew, so I assumed you must have told him.”
Susan switched her eyes back to Jago.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” she said.
“Not necessarily anything,” said Jago. “But is it the case?”
“Yes, if you must know. I told you my parents died three years ago. It was their home, and I grew up here.”
“Did they leave it just to you, or to you and your sister?”
“I’m not sure I like what you’re implying, Inspector.”
“I’m not implying anything, Mrs Fletcher – simply asking.”
“They left it to both of us.”
“And did you live here alone for three years until your marriage?”
“Yes, but I really can’t see what the relevance of all this is.”
“I just wondered whether your sister had come to live here with you. After all, a big place like this – she could have lived here for nothing instead of paying rent all that time somewhere else.”
“The reason for that is very simple, Inspector. My sister preferred her own company, and she wanted to live on her own, in her own place.”
“Did you buy her out? I mean, if she had no intention of living here –”
Susan interrupted him.
“Mr Jago, I was twenty years old when my parents died. What do you think I would have bought her out with? I didn’t have any money. Mary was quite happy for me to live here, and she still owned the house jointly with me.”
“I see. But now that she has unfortunately died, I assume the whole property belongs to you.”
“I suppose so, yes, but I haven’t had time even to think about that. It’s of no importance to me.”
“And strictly speaking, I suppose that now you’re married, the house belongs to you and your husband.”
Fletcher jumped from his seat.
“Now look here, Inspector,” he said. “You’ve tried that line once already and I told you I didn’t like what you were insinuating.”
Susan stood too and looked angrily at Fletcher.
“Have you been discussing this behind my back already?” she said.
Jago remained on the sofa and spoke quietly.
“Come now, Mr and Mrs Fletcher, these are perfectly normal questions in an enquiry like this, and I’m not trying to insinuate anything. Please sit down.”
The couple complied, but with an air of reluctance. Jago sensed an atmosphere of residual tension between them. Fletcher reached for the silver case in his pocket and selected a cigarette. He lit it and drew in the smoke. As he exhaled, Jago could tell that this time he had chosen one of the Turkish variety.
“Must you smoke those ghastly things, George?” said Susan. “They make the place smell like a – well, like an unsavoury place.”
“Brothel? Is that the word you were looking for?” said Fletcher. “Well, you’re wrong. These are perfectly respectable in Turkey. I’ve enjoyed them ever since I first smoked one in a very fine hotel in Constantinople during the British occupation.”
He smiled across the room at Jago and Cradock.
“I’m sure the inspector will recall, although perhaps not his colleague, who is probably too young to know about it, like my wife. It was in 1919, after the Armistice of Mudros. That marked the end of hostilities with the Ottoman Empire, and I was on the first of Sir John Ellerman’s ships to arrive there –”
Jago judged it prudent to nip a potentially long story in the bud.
“Thank you, Mr Fletcher, but as you said, you do have to get back to work, and I don’t want to detain you unduly.”
“Of course, Inspector, please carry on,” said Fletcher. He gave a casual wave of the cigarette, as if granting permission, and then picked a strand of tobacco from between his teeth and discarded it on the carpet.
“I recall you telling me that you and Mrs Fletcher first met on a blind date,” said Jago. “When was that?”
“It was in April,” said Fletcher. “Just after we first heard the Germans had invaded Norway. Chamberlain said we were sending the Navy in, and I remember thinking there’d be trouble. It was mad to think we could stop the Germans when their communication lines were so much shorter than ours. We lost a lot of ships, and he lost his job – and that was the end of the poor old Umbrella Man, wasn’t it?”
“So something of a whirlwind romance – you and Mrs Fletcher, I mean.”
“I suppose it was,” said Fletcher. “Wouldn’t you say so, my dear?”
Susan seemed to have recovered her composure. She smiled at Jago.
“Yes, I rather think it was. But it’s all worked out well, and I’ve no regrets. You must excuse me though, Inspector, if I sounded a little on edge just now. It’s just that I – well, not to put too fine a point upon it, I don’t feel safe.”
Her eyes darted back to Fletcher, and it seemed to Jago as though she were hesitant about continuing, but her husband simply stared at her, his face expressionless.
“It’s my nerves, you see,” she said. “These air raids have affected me, I think. I know we’re all going through it, and many people have suffered far worse than I have, but I can’t help it. The bombs make me jittery.”
“That’s perfectly understandable,” said Jago.
“I try to keep calm, to pretend there’s nothing the matter, because otherwise I’m afraid that I’ll go to pieces.”
“I noticed that you took the news of Mary’s death very calmly when we were here on Friday.”
“Yes. That’s it, exactly. When people meet me they probably think I’m the picture of serenity, but it’s just what I do to hold myself together when I get the jitters. Underneath it’s very different.”
“How did you get on with your sister? You mentioned before that you didn’t see a lot of each other. Was that by choice?”
“I don’t know whether it was by choice,” said Susan. “It was just something that happened. I think I told you she was older than me.”
“Yes – five years older.”
“Precisely. That’s quite a gap when you’re young, you know. I don’t recall us playing together. I think my relationship with her was probably the same as it is for any girl with an older sister. She always knew things I didn’t know, was allowed to do things I wasn’t allowed to do. And then of course it got to the stage where she’d done things that she wasn’t allowed to do too – things that I didn’t understand. She was a big girl and I was just a kid. Whatever I learned to do, whether it was swimming or riding a bike or my twelve times table, she’d already done it. Sometimes it felt as though I didn’t really exist, I was just her shadow. Even the clothes I wore were mostly things she’d already worn and grown out of.”
“So you wouldn’t say you were close?”
“Close? I don’t think there was ever a question of us being close. She was always too far ahead of me. We were in the same house, but it seemed as though she was living in a different world to me, in a place I hadn’t arrived at yet. It felt as though I could see her further down the road but would never catch up with her.”
“And when you grew up?”
“I suppose I caught up with her then. You might even say I overtook her, when I met George and got married, but it didn’t change the way I felt.”
Susan got out of her chair and crossed the room to her husband. He stood and put his arms round her as she laid her head on his shoulder. Fletcher spoke over her to Jago.
“You may think this is a nice house and everything’s just fine here, Inspector, but as you can see, my wife’s life has not been easy. Her mind is fragile. That’s why I want to look after her.”
Susan eased herself out of his embrace and stood beside him, holding his hand, to face Jago.
“Perhaps I should have burst into tears when you told me Mary was dead, Inspector,” she said. “Perhaps I should have screamed. You must think me cold-hearted, but it’s not that. It’s just that sometimes things happen to you in life, things change. I had plenty of tears to shed when I was a child, but now…”
She sighed. Her face looked tired.
“Maybe we all start with a different number – some people have enough to last a lifetime, others run out when they’re still young. I don’t think I had many when I started.”