Saturday 26th November, morning continued
Slumped on the bed, Callum McGillivray dislodged his left shoe with his right foot and let it drop to the floor, then repeated the process with his other shoe.
‘That’s better,’ he sighed, wiggling his toes in relief. ‘New shoes play merry hell with my tootsies.’ He heaved his muscular body up a bit, and doubled the pillow to make a pad for his back. ‘We haven’t got much, have we?’
Sitting on the upright chair, which was the only other place in the hotel bedroom he could park himself, David Moore pulled his notebook out of his pocket. ‘It’s funny, though, nobody we’ve spoken to so far had a good word to say about Janet Souter.’
He flipped back some pages. ‘According to what they told us, she went out of her way to put people’s backs up.’
‘Mmm . . . hmmm.’ The inspector had fished out his cigarettes, and was trying to coax some life into his lighter. When a tiny flame did appear, he touched it lightly with the cigarette between his lips and puffed madly until it ignited.
‘Old women often turn nasty and disagreeable, but she sounds a right besom. Mrs Wakeford never mentioned any actual trouble between herself and the dead woman, but Mrs Skinner couldn’t wait to tell us things she’d done to annoy them. Would she be smart enough to put up a bluff, would you say?’
‘You mean she was deliberately trying to put us off the track by running down the victim like that?’ Moore pondered briefly, then shook his head. ‘You can’t suspect Mrs Skinner. She was just being honest about all the trouble they’d had with Janet Souter.’
‘You think so?’ McGillivray rubbed his stubby forefinger across his chin, then screwed up his eyes against the smoke from his cigarette. ‘And the other one, Mrs Grant, was as jittery as a virgin on her first night. Her faint couldn’t have been better timed.’
‘Oh no, sir, it wasn’t put on. She’s a very nervous lady, and the questioning had been too much for her.’
‘Oh aye?’ The inspector sounded sceptical as he drew an envelope out of his pocket. ‘We’d better have a look at the bumf that constable gave me.’ He opened the typewritten sheet and began to read aloud.
‘Miss Janet Souter’s nephews. One, Ronald Baker, fifty-five, of 36 Newton Avenue, Thornkirk. Small engineering business. Wife, Flora. Two, Stephen Drummond, fifty-one, of 147 Kingswood Drive, Thornkirk. Grocery shop. Wife, Barbara. Dead woman’s estate left equally between Ronald Baker and Stephen Drummond, confirmed by her solicitor, Martin Spencer, business address, 21 George Square, Thornkirk.’
He lifted his head. ‘That seems straightforward enough. Ronald and Stephen have an obvious reason for getting rid of the old aunt – probably got fed up waiting till she popped off under her own steam. We’ll let them sweat till tomorrow, I think. A little bit of suspense sometimes works wonders.’
Laying the paper on the bed beside him, he looked at his watch. ‘Twenty to twelve. Just time for you to nose round the local shops, before lunch at one. That’s one thing about a small village, everything’s within spitting distance, and the shopkeepers might have picked up bits of gossip from their customers. And, if you’ve time, Moore, see if you can track down that boy who delivered the papers. He might have remembered something that struck him as being out of the ordinary.’
‘Yes, sir.’ David Moore stood up and pushed his chair back under the small table.
‘I’ll stay here, to give my feet a rest, and write out a few notes on what I think we’ve got already. See you later.’ The inspector lay back, with his hands behind his head.
The young sergeant reflected ruefully that his feet would also be glad of a rest, after hunting round the murdered woman’s cottage and garden for a couple of hours. Thank goodness the shops were only a few doors away from the hotel, and all quite close together, as McGillivray had said. The ironmonger was first, so he looked at the name above the door and went in, trying to look a bit more alert than he felt.
‘Mr Hood? I’m Sergeant Moore, Grampian CID, and I’d like to ask you a few questions about Miss Janet Souter, of Honeysuckle Cottages.’
‘Certainly, Sergeant. I heard she’d died.’ Robert Hood straightened his grey nylon overall round his podgy body and tried, by drawing himself up to his full five feet five, to look important. ‘I didn’t know her all that well, she only bought odds and ends occasionally, and the last time I saw her was two or three weeks ago when she came in for rat poison. She was troubled with rats in her garden – has been for years.’
‘She’d bought rat poison before, had she?’
‘Quite regularly, but the rats kept on appearing. There’s an old warehouse, you see, near the railway line at the foot of Ashgrove Lane, that’s where they breed, I think, and the old woman often forgot to put the lid back on her dustbin when she was putting out rubbish, so that would have attracted them. But she didn’t buy the rat poison that day. Davie Livingstone happened to be here at the same time, and he told her he’d give her some arsenic.’
Moore looked, he hoped, suitably surprised. ‘Oh?’
The ironmonger grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you hadn’t heard about the arsenic?’
‘Well, yes, I had.’ The sergeant looked sheepish. ‘But how did this man come to have arsenic? It’s not a thing you keep handy in case you need it.’
‘Davie worked in the glass factory before he retired, and they use arsenic for making glass. Anyway, he was bothered with rats himself for a while, and he’d made a point of taking a small amount home with him every week for months before he stopped working. He told Miss Souter it was quicker and better than rat poison, and he said he’d take some up to her. He sometimes did a bit of gardening for her, the rough stuff, you know.’
‘But, Mr Hood . . .’
The man raised one hand from the counter and held it up. ‘Before you say it, I know it’s against the law to have arsenic, but I thought, if it made Davie happy, what the hell? He’d have known exactly how dangerous it was.’
‘It was more dangerous for a woman of Miss Souter’s age to be tampering with it . . . Would he have been on good enough terms with her?’
Robert Hood spluttered. ‘Nobody was on good terms with her, and you’re surely not suspecting him of an ulterior motive? Davie Livingstone wouldn’t hurt a fly . . . Just rats,’ he added.
The sergeant considered for a moment. ‘Do you think Miss Souter could have taken the arsenic accidentally, forgotten to wash her hands, or something like that?’
‘Oh, no. She wasn’t senile, and Davie warned her to wash her hands thoroughly. She wouldn’t have been careless with it, I’m sure. She’s definitely been murdered.’
The sergeant pursed his lips. ‘Can you think of any person who might have wanted to kill her?’
‘I know she wasn’t well liked, but . . . murder! That needs to be a very special kind of hate.’
‘Yes. Was there anyone . . . have you heard any rumours?’
Robert Hood shook his head. ‘She was always rubbing somebody up the wrong way, and I’ve heard lots of people moaning about her, but there’s been nothing all that bad for a long time.’
‘Oh well. Thank you for giving me your time, Mr Hood, and if anything comes to your mind, let me know. Just contact the police station.’
‘I’ll certainly keep thinking, but I don’t believe I’ll be able to help.’
The butcher, John Robertson, tall and well built, rolled his eyes dramatically when Moore asked him how well he’d known Janet Souter. ‘A headcase, that woman, a real headcase. Came in here at least once a week, occasionally twice, and was never satisfied with anything. Stringy beef, fatty sausages, too dear. You know the kind of thing. Not bloody happy unless she was upsetting somebody.’
His ruddy face suddenly lit up. ‘I’ll give you an example. Just a week ago yesterday, she gave me a mouthful in front of all my customers about the price of the steak. She ended up buying mutton instead, because it was cheaper, yet she’s bought steak every Friday for years.’ He laughed. ‘That’s the kind of woman she was, Sergeant, and I say good riddance to bad rubbish. I wish I’d thought of doing away with her myself.’
David Moore wasn’t surprised at what the man had told him. It was just the sort of behaviour that he’d have expected from the dead woman, judging by all the opinions of her, so far. ‘You’re telling me that she was a nasty person, Mr Robertson, but would you know of anybody who might have wanted to kill her?’
The butcher laughed grimly. ‘The whole village has felt like killing her at one time or another, I’m sure.’
The detective remained serious. ‘That’s not quite the same as carrying it out, though.’
‘No, that’s true. Poisoning’s a dirty game; it has to be well thought out, not a spur-of-the-moment sort of crime. If she’d been hit on the head with a blunt instrument, or stabbed with her own kitchen knife, or strangled, or something physical like that, I’d have said quite a few people could have been capable, but not poison.’
Scratching his head, he went on, ‘It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, poison.’ He let out a loud guffaw, and slapped the counter with his large hand in appreciation of his own accidental wit. ‘Never mind me, Sergeant, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, but it’s true, whatever way you look at it, isn’t it?’
David Moore smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Robertson, you’ve been very helpful.’ He walked out of the shop, leaving the butcher still chuckling to himself, but reflecting that murder wasn’t really anything to laugh about.
His call at the bank manager’s house drew a blank, because the man didn’t know Miss Souter except to see her, and from what he had heard from others.
‘She didn’t deal with us here. Apparently, she was afraid people would get to know her affairs, though I’m sure I would never have passed on any information about her if she had used our facilities.’
‘No, of course not,’ Moore felt obliged to agree.
The hairdresser was very busy, but took time to say that Janet Souter had gone there once a month, and had never been pleased with what had been done.
‘If there had been another hairdresser in the place, she’d have gone to them and complained, the same as she did here.’
‘Have any of your customers spoken about her murder? I’d have thought that would be a subject they’d love to get their teeth into.’
‘Some of them have mentioned it.’ The young woman glanced at her watch. ‘But they’re all sure it was one of her nephews that did it. Now, I’m sorry, but I have to get on.’
Moore had thought he’d pick up some gossip in the hairdressing salon in the High Street, but no such luck. He crossed disconsolately to the other side of the street, where there were only two shops, a chemist and a general store.
In the first, the chemist, a tall, balding man, looked up, smiling until the sergeant stated his business. Then his air of bonhomie disappeared. ‘Miss Souter was a customer, but not one I was ever very friendly with, I’m afraid. Her health was always good, so she never bought medications of any kind, only small items of toiletries, and she never failed to complain about the prices. She was disagreeable and unpleasant, and I, for one, am not sorry she’s dead.’
He looked at Moore and smiled grimly. ‘I expect that shocks you, but you’ll probably get the same reaction from all the other shopkeepers. She wasn’t very popular with any of us.’
‘So I’ve gathered.’ Moore returned his smile, ruefully. ‘Have you any theory about who killed her?’
‘Anyone, I suppose. We all knew she had some arsenic, but it’s most likely to have been one of her nephews, isn’t it? None of us was going to gain anything by doing away with her.’
The shop next door was a general store, with a notice up outside informing the world that it was also a post office. The bell tinkled when David Moore went in, and three pairs of eyes turned to look at him. He wished that he’d remembered to check the name outside, but moved over to the post office grille.
‘Er, good morning. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m Detective Sergeant Moore from Grampian Police, and we’re investigating the murder of Miss Souter of Honeysuckle Cottages. I hope you don’t mind answering some questions, Miss . . . er . . . ?’
The thin, sour-faced postmistress gave a slight condescending smile. ‘It’s Miss Wheeler, and Sergeant Black of the local police has already asked me what I know. I don’t think there’s anything further I can tell you.’
‘Perhaps you could tell me what sort of person she was, and that kind of thing.’ The woman’s manner had made him feel at a disadvantage, so he pulled out his notebook to give his visit an air of serious officialdom.
‘Oh, that’s different.’ Miss Wheeler was obviously pleased to be asked this. ‘I’ve known her for twenty-two and a half years, ever since I came here to take over this shop.’
‘Were you friendly with her?’
‘Not so much friendly, she wasn’t that kind of person. It’s a shame to speak ill of the dead, but really, Sergeant, I don’t believe she had any friends in Tollerton at all. She was a most unlikeable woman.’
‘That’s right.’ The interruption came from the customer standing at the other counter.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Pritchard, but the sergeant is talking to me.’ Miss Wheeler’s voice, cold and reproving, showed that she objected to the spotlight being diverted from her.
David Moore hastened to pour oil on the troubled waters. ‘If you care to wait a moment, Mrs Pritchard, I’ll have a word with you when I’ve finished with Miss Wheeler.’ The woman appeared to be fractionally appeased, but continued to glare at the postmistress.
‘As I was saying,’ that lady went on triumphantly, ‘Janet Souter took a delight in making things unpleasant for other people. She is – was – one of the oldest inhabitants, and thought she owned the place. Nobody has a good word to say for her, not even the minister’s wife, and she’s a perfect lady, but the old woman didn’t behave very nicely to her, either.’
‘The minister’s wife?’
‘Mrs Valentine. She came here with her husband about four or five years ago. A very nice couple, and he’s a real gem. Face and physique like a film star, and all the girls go wild about him, but he doesn’t let it go to his head. He’s a far better man than our last minister.’
‘His wife, though,’ Moore prompted. ‘You said . . .’
‘Oh, yes. Janet Souter snubbed her several times that I know about, over Sales of Work and various other fund-raising events, but Mrs Valentine never said anything against her, though we all knew there was no love lost between them.’ Emma Wheeler shot a quick glance at Mrs Pritchard, as if daring her to argue.
‘Do you know of anyone else who might have had a real grudge against the old lady, enough to . . .’
‘To murder her, d’you mean? It is murder, then. We thought it was, seeing all the different police going around. It’s not much help to you, Sergeant, but we’ve all felt like murdering her at times. That’s not the same as actually doing it, of course, is it?’
‘No, no, of course not.’ David Moore was fast becoming acutely aware of how difficult the case was going to be. ‘In your own dealings with her, did you ever have occasion to be really angry with her?’
‘Lots of times, but nothing so bad as make me turn homicidal and poison her.’
‘Thank you, Miss Wheeler, for being so honest with me.’ As Moore turned round, he noticed that the young assistant behind the counter was regarding him with a scared, wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression, and decided that he may as well have a word with her afterwards too. She looked to be about sixteen or seventeen, and sometimes youngsters innocently revealed more information than the older, more wordly wise.
But the customer, a woman nearing fifty, was waiting rather impatiently. ‘Now, Mrs Pritchard, have you anything further to tell me?’ He gave her his full attention, although he presumed that she merely wanted to add her tuppence worth about being shabbily treated by the murdered woman.
‘Well, it’s not that I knew Miss Souter very well, but I do know she caused an almighty row between Sydney Pettigrew, the chemist, and his youngest son.’
This was more like it, and Moore held his pen ready.
‘It was over May White. Her husband, Gilbert, works with an oil company in Abbie Dabbie, or something like that, so he only gets home once or twice a year.’
Emma Wheeler sniffed at this, but made no comment, so Mrs Pritchard carried on. ‘Well, May had been encouraging young Douglas Pettigrew to come to her house. It had been going on for months, and all of us down at that end of Ashgrove Lane knew about it, but it was none of our business. Douglas is about eighteen, and she must be about forty or so, though she looks in her early thirties. It wouldn’t have happened in my day, but you young folk today have a different outlook on life from us older ones, haven’t you?’
She looked at the sergeant, and winked. ‘It’s a permissive society nowadays, but the old witch – that’s what we called Janet Souter – found out about it. I think she saw him sneaking home early one morning, and put two and two together and made four, you know. She told Sydney what his son was up to, and, of course, she painted as black a picture as she could.’
David Moore paused in his note-taking as Mrs Pritchard stopped for breath. This was exactly what he was after, scandal of some kind. ‘So Douglas Pettigrew, and his father, would both have had cause to hate Miss Souter?’
The woman screwed up her face. ‘Hate’s maybe too strong a word, though, more dislike. Anyway, Sydney forbade Douglas ever to see May again, and went and had a row with the Falconers – that’s her parents – as well, saying it was all May’s fault for encouraging his son.’
‘It was all May’s fault,’ the young girl burst out. ‘She was always asking him down there, with all sorts of excuses. Douglas told me himself.’
‘Phyllis Barclay!’ Emma Wheeler felt obliged to reprimand her assistant. ‘You don’t know anything about it.’
The girl looked indignant. ‘Oh, yes, I do. He was going with me till she started with him.’
The two older women raised their eyebrows at this. It was obviously news to them.
‘He told me he didn’t want to go in the first place, but she pleaded with him to mend a fuse for her. He said he felt sorry for her, being on her own so much, and not having a man about the place to do things for her, so he gave in. He only meant to go the once, but she persuaded him to go back, to fix a washer, and stupid little jobs like that, and he ended up going two or three times a week. He said he couldn’t help himself, for she made him feel important.’ She swallowed to keep from crying.
David Moore made a few notes and left the conversation to develop by itself. Much more was being revealed than under his official questioning, so it was best to let the three women continue under their own steam.
Miss Wheeler was saying, ‘You never told me you’d been going out with Douglas Pettigrew, Phyllis.’
‘It wasn’t anybody’s business.’ The girl was defiant. ‘I told him it would all be over between us if he didn’t stop seeing her, and he just laughed. He said May knew how to whet a man’s appetite.’ There were tears now in the lovely blue eyes.
‘Well, I never!’ Miss Wheeler’s face registered all the shock which might be expected in an elderly maiden lady.
‘But he carried on with her, didn’t he?’ Mrs Pritchard was eager to hear more of the liaison.
‘Yes, he did, till Miss Souter told his father, and I don’t really know what happened then.’ Phyllis Barclay stopped, quite surprised at herself for telling these people so much. ‘But I do know Douglas would never have poisoned the old lady,’ she added, almost in a whisper.
There was a lengthy silence, during which her story was digested by the other three occupants of the store, until the door opened and a tall, gangling youth entered.
‘Hi!’ he said, to everyone in general. ‘I just came to tell you I’ll be a bit late coming for the Citizens, Miss Wheeler. I’m playing football this afternoon.’ He let his eyes wander round, then, sensing an atmosphere.
The sergeant realised that this must be the paperboy he had been told to question, and assumed his most official voice as he stepped forward. ‘You are William Arthur? I’m Detective Sergeant Moore of Grampian Police.’
He was amused to see the boy’s cockiness deflate a little, but Willie couldn’t help much. He’d noticed that Miss Souter’s milk was sitting at her door in the morning, and had told Miss Wheeler when he went back to the shop. Moore looked at the postmistress with his eyebrows raised.
‘I didn’t do anything about it.’ She hurried to defend herself. ‘You see, I was worried about what would happen if I sent the police up and nothing was wrong. She’d have been absolutely furious, and she’d likely have come stamping down here to give me what for.’
He could understand the poor woman’s dilemma, so he turned to the paperboy again.
‘I didn’t know what to do, either,’ admitted Willie. ‘Miss Souter was an old . . . but she was always on the go. I suspected something must be wrong with her, so I told Mrs Wakeford at teatime when I saw the milk still at the door. I didn’t realise she’d been poisoned, though.’
‘Who told you she’d been poisoned, Willie?’ Moore wondered how this had got out. He was sure that John Black would never have divulged any such information, not to the paperboy, at any rate.
‘It’s . . .’ The boy caught himself, remembering his promise to the local sergeant, then went on hastily. ‘It’s all over the village, and somebody was bound to do her in some day, the way she went on.’
‘Willie!’ Miss Wheeler cautioned the boy, although she had hinted at much the same thing herself.
‘Did you notice anything unusual when you were there in the morning, Willie? Anything different, that a stranger might not have seen? Something that might give us a clue to finding out who killed her?’
The fourteen-year-old pondered for a moment, then said, ‘No, but I’ve never looked in her window before, so I wouldn’t have known anything was unusual, would I? Miss Wheeler said she was going to tell the copper . . . Constable Paul, but she didn’t see him. But Mrs Wakeford phoned the police station as soon as I told her about it in the afternoon.’
He looked slightly downcast as he added, ‘Sergeant Black wouldn’t let me and Mrs Wakeford into Miss Souter’s house, though.’
Moore pushed in the top of his Biro, and clipped it into his breast pocket, then slid his notebook down behind it. ‘Thank you all very much for your cooperation.’
‘That’s all right, Sergeant. Call again any time.’ Miss Wheeler took command again as he walked out of the shop.
He glanced through the window when he walked past, and saw them, as he’d expected, deep in speculation as to who could be responsible for the murder. He was annoyed, but not altogether surprised, to find the inspector still lying on his bed when he returned to the Starline. McGillivray looked up, and Moore was sure that he’d been asleep.
‘Did you uncover any skeletons in any of the village cupboards, lad?’
‘Not really, sir. The only interesting thing that came out was a bit of scandal concerning a young married woman who lives at the foot of Ashgrove Lane.’ The sergeant sat down wearily and unbuttoned his jacket.
‘Oh yes?’ McGillivray perked up. ‘There’s nothing better than scandal for making feelings run high and tempers snap in the heat of the moment.’
Moore recounted the stories Mrs Pritchard and Phyllis Barclay had told him, while his superior listened attentively with his head on one side.
‘So. This young lad . . .’
‘Douglas Pettigrew, the chemist’s son.’
‘This Douglas Pettigrew would’ve been pretty mad at the old woman for sabotaging his love nest; and the married Jezebel would likely have been none too pleased about it either, but hardly angry enough to make her kill, eh, Moore?’
‘Probably not. She’s likely just been amusing herself with the boy to pass the time, nothing very passionate.’
The inspector swung his legs round. ‘ “Hell hath no fury . . .” ’
‘She wasn’t scorned, sir. Maybe thwarted.’
‘We’ll have to keep her in mind, just the same . . . and the boy.’ McGillivray sat on the edge of the bed, thinking, until the sergeant cleared his throat. He looked up. ‘Did anything else turn up, Moore?’
‘Nothing exciting. The murdered woman wasn’t well liked, but I don’t think any of the people I spoke to disliked her enough to poison her. The ironmonger said she’d got the arsenic from a Davie Livingstone to kill rats, and he’d told her it was dangerous, so she wouldn’t have been careless with it.’
McGillivray rubbed his stubbly chin. ‘Maybe, but she was eighty-seven, after all, and her memory wouldn’t have been so good. She could have contaminated her own food, if she’d forgotten to wash her hands, or left some of it on her clothes. What d’you think?’ His eyes were twinkling, and Moore wondered what he was up to.
His stomach was crying out for food, but he had to take the time to correct the Inspector. ‘No, sir, it couldn’t have been that. Mr Hood said she wasn’t senile, and would have been very careful because this other man had warned her it was deadly stuff.’
McGillivray pulled his shoes towards him. ‘Is that a fact? Moore, you’ll just have time to give yourself a wash before lunch.’
The sergeant stood up thankfully, then paused with his hand on the door knob. ‘It just occurred to me, sir, the chemist said he’d never had any real trouble with Miss Souter, but she was the one who told him about his son and this Mrs White. Would there be any significance in him not mentioning that?’
‘There might be.’ The inspector winced as his tender feet came in contact with the new leather. ‘If he was guilty, he wouldn’t want you to know that he’d a reason for getting rid of her. On the other hand, if he was innocent, he could have considered that it had nothing to do with the case, and that it was nobody’s business but his family’s. Get moving, Sergeant. My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.’