Tuesday 29th November, evening
At seven twenty, Douglas Pettigrew called for his reinstated sweetheart, Phyllis Barclay, and they stood outside her house for a few moments, discussing where to go.
Tollerton boasted no cinema, disco or any other place of entertainment, just a slightly grotty pub at one end of the High Street and the Starline Hotel in the middle, plus the Youth Club, which met only on Wednesdays in the Church Hall.
The lack of facilities was no hardship to young courting couples in the summer, as they usually took a walk beyond the village into the countryside, though the more passionate of them often ended up by going down Ashgrove Lane, and climbing the wall at the foot to cross the railway line. At the other side of the tracks, a fairly dense wood provided many exciting secluded spots where inhibitions could be overcome – or forgotten altogether.
But lying under the trees on a bed of dead leaves was not a pleasant prospect on this bitterly cold night, the second last in November, so Douglas and his girlfriend plumped for the Starline, which was warm and clean, if not very private.
Having bought a tomato juice for Phyllis and a half pint of lager for himself, he carried them across to the table in the corner and sat down very close to her. ‘I’m glad we’re back together again,’ he murmured, taking her hand and squeezing it.
‘So’m I.’ Phyllis snuggled against him on the padded seat. ‘I really missed you when you were . . .’
‘Making a fool of myself,’ he finished for her. ‘I don’t know what the hell got into me. It all, sort of, happened.’
A glutton for punishment, Phyllis wanted to hear how a – to her – middle-aged, married woman could have lured Douglas away from a girl his own age. ‘How did it happen? What did she do?’
He took a sip of his lager. ‘The first time, she stood watching me till I put a new fuse in one of her plugs, then she offered me a drink. I didn’t want to let her know I’d never drunk spirits, so I took this large glass of whisky.’
‘Did you get drunk?’ That might excuse his behaviour.
‘I don’t think so. A bit happy, maybe, but I was scared out of my wits when she sat down beside me on the settee, so I moved away a bit. She laughed at that and I just stood up went home.’
‘But you must have kept on going back?’ she persisted.
He looked even more uncomfortable. ‘Oh, you don’t want to hear any more, Phyllis. I was just plain daft.’
Realising at last that it would probably be too painful to hear all the sordid details of his affair, Phyllis changed the subject. ‘I wonder if the detectives have got any further with their investigiation? The sergeant came into the shop, you know, asking what Miss Wheeler knew about Janet Souter.’
‘They suspected me of doing her in.’ He could laugh about it now, but he’d had the wind up at all the questioning. Innocent men had been arrested before.
‘You did threaten her on the street,’ she reminded him. ‘And a lot of people heard you.’
Phyllis wasn’t actually one hundred per cent sure if she really believed he was innocent. That’s what gave a touch of mystery and fascination to their dates now. ‘Yes, I was the murderer’s girlfriend,’ she could say to the reporters after he was found guilty. She pulled herself up with a jerk when she realised what she was thinking – Douglas could never have done it.
‘I know I said I’d sort her out,’ he was saying, ‘but I never really meant to do anything, especially not murder. But I’d a good alibi, so it’s all over now, and that’s enough about it. Did you see that new pop programme last night?’
The current favourite groups, their albums and singles, held their attention for the next hour, until Phyllis said, ‘I told Mum I’d be home early tonight. I want to wash my hair, and I promised I’d give her a hand with the ironing – my own things, anyway. Don’t bother coming home with me.’
Her house was just three doors along, but she was rather disappointed that Douglas didn’t insist on accompanying her. She’d only herself to blame.
He couldn’t help thinking about his visits to May, Phyllis had brought it fresh to his mind, and he remembered their first kiss. He’d kissed girls before, including Phyllis, but never anything like that, and he’d been completely lost.
Recalling their nights of passion, he felt an unwanted need of her surging up in him, and he rose to buy another lager to cool down. His train of thought refused to be broken, however, and he remembered how pleased he’d been, with her and himself, when they’d finished their lovemaking that last night, until she rolled over and laughed at him.
‘You can’t make love like a man, Dougie boy,’ she’d taunted him. ‘My men can be animals, and that’s the way I like it.’
‘Your men?’ He’d been horrified at what she was inferring.
‘Most of the men round here have been in this bed at one time or other. You name them, I’ve had them.’
He’d named two men he imagined to be unlikely and she’d laughed again. ‘Yes, they’ve both been here. Ask them if you don’t believe me, though I bet they’re too scared of their wives to admit it. They weren’t too bad, but there’s one . . . Oh, boy! As a lover, he’s absolutely marvellous.’
‘Your husband, I suppose?’ Jealousy of that lucky man often came to his mind.
‘God, no. Not Gilbert. Lean over and I’ll whisper his name in your ear.’
Masochism, and sheer curiosity, had made him obey, and he’d been shocked when she told him, although he hadn’t fully believed her. He’d been sickened by her boasting, and had left as soon as he pulled on his clothes. He’d felt sapped, knowing that she’d been laughing at him all along.
That had been the night before old Nosey Parker Souter told his father about him, and he’d been secretly relieved to have the excuse not to go back to May’s house.
He took a gulp of his lager and something else stirred in his mind. Something he’d thought nothing of at the time, but now it came back vividly and meaningfully. He’d seen the very man May had raved about coming out of Janet Souter’s garden after midnight one night, stealthily and furtively – or was he just imagining that bit?
It was the night that he’d gone down to spy on May, to settle the seething unrest inside him, to know for sure that she had other men friends. He’d hung around the foot of the Lane for almost an hour, lurking in the shadows of the railway wall, but had seen nobody coming in or going out, and had given up his vigil about five past midnight, frozen to the marrow.
She was a liar as well as a tart, he’d thought angrily as he walked up the hill, and had laughed at himself for believing what she’d told him. She’d been wanting rid of him – that’s what it had been. That was when he had made up his mind to go back to Phyllis Barclay again, if she’d have him.
He’d treated her badly, and he wouldn’t blame her if she refused to have anything more to do with him, but he’d ask her. She was a decent girl, and he respected her for stopping him when she thought he was going too far. It wouldn’t stop him from trying, though, if he got the chance. He smiled to himself.
When he was halfway between the bottom group of houses and Honeysuckle Cottages, he’d seen the man coming out of the middle gate, wearing the long coat he always wore in the winter. It was difficult to see his face at first, but when he turned into the High Street his profile had been unmistakable in the light from the street lamps.
That had been on the night he was playing snooker, Douglas remembered then; the night the inspector was interested in; the night that Janet Souter had been murdered.
The youth’s blood ran cold. He’d better find McGillivray right away and let him know.
He jumped up quickly and went through the bar into the hotel itself and after enquiring at the desk for the inspector’s room number, he took the stairs two at a time and knocked on the door. When he received no answer to his second knock, he raced down and out on to the street.
Thinking that Sergeant Black would know where to find the CID men, he ran along to the police station, where the local sergeant looked up in surprise when he burst in breathlessly.
‘What’s up, Douglas?’
‘Where’s the Chief Inspector?’
‘He’ll be at the Starline.’
‘I’ve just come from there. I’ve got to find him, it’s very important.’
John Black could see that the boy was in a state of extreme agitation. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘No, it’s to do with the murder, and it’s McGillivray I’ll have to tell.’
Slightly offended, Black said, ‘I’ve no idea where he is, if he isn’t at the hotel. They’re maybe not in the village at all. They often go to Thornkirk to interview suspects, though he usually tells me before he goes.’
Douglas shook his head. ‘Their Vauxhall’s sitting in the Starline carpark. I noticed it when I came past.’
‘They must be around here somewhere, then, but I can’t tell you where, because I don’t know. I think you’d better tell me whatever it is that’s got you so steamed up.’
It came pouring out. ‘It was the night of the murder, you see, and I’d gone down to watch May White’s house.’
He saw the sergeant giving him a peculiar look and tried to explain. ‘I’d been a bloody idiot and I was glad to be finished with her, but I wanted to prove to myself that she’d been telling the truth about all the lovers she’d had. So I went and hid beside the railway wall and waited for nearly an hour, but nobody came near her. She’d told me, as well, about this special man, this best lover, and when I was halfway up the Lane to go home, I saw him coming out of old Miss Souter’s gate. It would have been about ten past twelve, maybe just before.’ He stopped for breath.
John Black, who’d been listening with only half an ear to the boy’s ramblings, suddenly straightened up and took notice. ‘What night did you say that was?’
‘Last Wednesday, the night before she was found. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but now – well, he must have just done her in and it wasn’t arsenic.’
‘How did you know it wasn’t arsenic?’ The sergeant’s voice was sharp and suspicious; this information had been kept from the general public.
‘The inspector asked me if I’d ever trained as a chemist, so I guessed she must’ve been killed with some other kind of poison. A bloody fiend, that’s what he is.’
‘Who was this man?’
Leaning across the counter, Douglas said the name quietly, then stood back, enjoying the expression on the other man’s face, and knowing exactly how he felt.
‘Douglas Pettigrew! You’ve been drinking! I can smell it on your breath.’
‘I only had two halves of lager, that’s all. I’m dead sober, and I tell you, that’s who it was. I saw his face by the streetlight, so I’m positive.’
‘And you say Mrs White told you he was the best . . . ? Oh no, I can’t believe that. A man of the cloth? She must have been lying through her teeth.’ Black’s scandalised face was almost as red as the youth’s now.
‘She might well have been, Sergeant, I’m not denying that, but it was him I saw coming out of Janet Souter’s gate that night. What’ll we do?’
Rubbing his jaw, Black considered for a moment. ‘Well, I don’t know. It’s Derek’s night off, and I can’t leave this place unattended. The inspector’ll likely call in here before he goes back to the hotel. I think you’d be best to wait here for him.’
‘It’s the only thing I can do, I suppose.’ Douglas shrugged and went over to sit on the bench. ‘He’s going to be bloody annoyed at me, anyway, for telling him a lie about Wednesday night. Well, not a lie, exactly, but not the whole truth.’
‘You’re speaking in riddles.’
‘He asked me to account for my movements, and I told him I’d been playing snooker all evening. That was true enough, but we went into the pub for about an hour, I forgot about that when I was speaking to him. My mum told the young sergeant I was home by five past eleven and never went out again, which wasn’t true, though she didn’t know.’
‘I hope the inspector can understand what you’re at, Douglas, for I’m dashed if I can.’
‘She didn’t know I went out again. I told you, I wanted to spy on May, so I nipped out of my bedroom window on to the roof of my Dad’s lean-to store. I’ve done it often enough before, and I always went back the same way. I didn’t tell the inspector, because I didn’t remember it was the same night.’
‘How did you come to put two and two together?’
‘I was in the Starline lounge bar with Phyllis and she was asking me about May, and after she went home I began going over things in my mind, and it just struck me. If he denies everything, McGillivray’ll suspect me again, and I was in the Lane that night. My God! It’ll be the finish of me, for I know who the inspector’s going to believe.’
Douglas turned stricken eyes on the sergeant, who didn’t know what to think, and was turning Douglas’s incredible story over and over in his mind.
At last Black said, ‘We’ll have to wait till the inspector gets back, but stop worrying, Douglas. I’m sure the truth’ll come out, whatever it is.’
When his wife took the two men into the room, Sydney Pettigrew raised his head in annoyance at the intrusion. He was watching the BBC news and objected to being disturbed, particularly by these two.
He recognised the young, well-dressed sergeant who’d come into the shop asking questions on the day they arrived, and he presumed the other one was the inspector. There was always something about policemen, even in plain clothes, that you couldn’t mistake, apart from the size of their feet. They’d been harassing Douglas, but that was all sorted out now according to the boy, so why had they come here?
With barely concealed resignation, he rose and switched off his television set. ‘Yes?’
‘We won’t take long, but we’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr Pettigrew. I suppose you know we’re investigating the murder of Janet Souter?’
It was the older man who spoke, and Sydney thought that he didn’t look much like a detective chief inspector – more like an uncouth farm labourer with his rough clothes, or a boxer, with his broken nose. ‘Yes, I know who you are. Moore and McGillivray, I believe. A fine-sounding double act, but your performance doesn’t measure up too well. Have you run out of suspects, or are you casting about blindly for inspiration, on the off chance of striking it lucky?’
‘Neither, sir.’ McGillivray was careful to remain polite, but he hadn’t cared for the man’s sarcastic remarks, nor for him putting the sergeant’s name first. ‘We’ve to be as thorough in our search as we can. How well did you know the murdered lady?’
The chemist raised one shoulder. ‘Fairly well, as a customer, and I’ve sampled her vile tongue for years, like all the other shopkeepers in Tollerton, as I told your sergeant.’
‘Even in your line of work?’
‘Oh yes. She complained about my prices every time she came in, and then there was the business about our Douglas and May Falconer, er, White, which I’ve no doubt you’ll have sniffed out. She was very outspoken about that, although I was glad she told me. I soon put a stop to it.’ His stern expression was that of a Victorian father.
The inspector coughed discreetly. ‘That would have given your son a very good motive for killing her, of course.’
‘It would look that way to your suspicious mind, but I think the boy had seen the error of his ways before that. He wasn’t too upset about it.’
There had been enough shilly-shallying, McGillivray decided. ‘Mrs White has been giving the names of the men who’ve been involved with her, and I must say she seems very popular. I expect there are quite a lot of married men shaking in their shoes right now, in case their liaisons with her come to light.’
He thought he could detect a slight, very slight, flash of alarm in the man’s eyes, but it was quickly gone. Perhaps he’d been mistaken.
‘She’s well known to be a bit of a story-teller.’
‘A liar, do you mean?’
The chemist shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘A stronger word than I’d have used, Inspector, but I think she wanted people to think she was a femme fatale, and exaggerated a bit for effect.’
He glanced at his wife, who was listening to the questioning, and smiled to her. She smiled back. There was no anger or suspicion on her face, and their relationship appeared to be genuinely warm and loving.
Watching him watching the inspector, David Moore felt that Pettigrew wasn’t in the least affected by the ominous silence with which McGillivray was trying to break his nerve.
Pettigrew lifted his pipe from the mantelpiece and took a box of matches from his pocket. ‘D’you mind if I light up?’
McGillivray waved his hand dismissively, so the chemist struck a match and drew on the stem of his briar, his hands quite steady.
At last, the inspector spoke. He’d been debating on whether or not he should accost the man about his infidelity, and had decided against breaking up a seemingly happy marriage. ‘You supply hypodermic syringes, I presume?’
Pettigrew appeared to be genuinely puzzled. ‘Of course, just a few, to diabetics with a doctor’s prescription. We’ve to be careful nowadays, in case of drug takers.’
‘I see.’ Callum McGillivray stood up, aware that his strategy hadn’t paid off this time. ‘Thank you.’
The chemist showed them out, more polite than he had hitherto been. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help you, Inspector. You know, I was rather annoyed when you came in, about you suspecting Douglas, and . . .’
‘He’s in the clear now. I’m sorry if you thought we were badgering him . . .’
‘I realise you’ve your job to do. Murder’s a terrible crime, and if there’s anything you want to know, don’t hesitate to ask me.’
Outside, McGillivray sighed. ‘Either he deserves an Oscar, or he knows nothing. I believe he might have been involved with Mrs White at some time, but it’s not our business, unless . . .’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Doctor,’ McGillivray said when John Randall opened the door to them himself. ‘We’ve a few questions to ask you.’
‘Come in, come in. You’re not interrupting anything. I was just reading the Evening Citizen. He ushered them into a large square room, obviously furnished in the twenties or thirties – and lovingly cared for since. Probably his childhood home, Moore guessed . . .
Indicating the tray of dirty dishes sitting on the table, he said, ‘Don’t mind me. I generally eat off a tray. My daily prepares a meal for me, I just carry it through, and, being a bachelor, I don’t always bother to clear things away.’
‘I’m the same myself,’ the chief inspector admitted.
‘Good. Now I don’t feel so remiss. What can I do for you?’
McGillivray decided to take off the kid gloves this time. ‘We believe that you were one of Mrs May White’s callers?’
Randall’s face turned a deep scarlet. ‘Who told you that?’
‘I’m glad you’re not denying it. It came from the lady herself.’
The doctor was obviously thinking how to explain his behaviour, but decided to brazen it out. ‘A year or two ago I was attending her for a bout of shingles, and . . . we . . . she persuaded me to be more than her physician.’
‘Weren’t you afraid you might be seen?’
‘I suppose you mean Janet Souter. Now I see what you’re after. No, I had no worries about being seen. I am a single man and it is nobody’s business what I do.’
‘Yes, you’re quite right, Doctor, but you have a position to uphold . . . ?’
‘I’ve never given a damn what other people think of me, Inspector, and I’ve no intention of apologising to you for that.’
‘No, of course not, I’m sorry. It’s just . . . we’ve . . . run out of suspects and . . .’
‘You were going to put the blame on me? My God! You’ve got some nerve!’
‘No, Doctor. You’ve got me all wrong.’
Randall suddenly exploded with laughter. ‘Good God, man, I haven’t enjoyed anything so much for a long time. To think you’ve got me down as a profligate! I only . . . dallied, shall I say, with the ravishing May once, and it left me feeling dirty and ashamed. I did not repeat the experience, though the next time she called me in, on some trivial pretext, it took all my willpower to refuse her. You don’t know what she’s like.’
McGillivray grinned ruefully. ‘Ah, but I do know, Doctor. I’d the devil’s own job to keep from . . . I’m sorry if I stepped out of line earlier, but you can surely understand . . .’
‘Don’t be sorry, McGillivray, I do understand. You have your job to do in the way you see fit, and I had a damned good laugh out of it.’
‘It’s good of you to take it like that, sir, and goodnight to you.’
Moore, who had said nothing since they entered the house, couldn’t help smiling as Randall winked at him while they went out.
In the car again, McGillivray said, ‘Don’t say a word, lad. I know I handled that badly, so just learn from my gaffe.’
‘Yes, sir. Where to now?’
‘Where do you think?’
Muriel Valentine came to the door of the manse when McGillivray rang the bell. ‘We’d like to speak to your husband, if you don’t mind.’
‘Adam’s out on one of his calls, but he shouldn’t be long. Please come in and wait.’
She was neatly, if not stylishly, dressed in a pleated skirt and woollen jumper, and her knitting was lying on the small table where she’d laid it before answering the door.
‘Does your husband make many evening calls?’
‘Quite a lot. Most families are all out working during the day, so he finds it easier to get them at home in the evenings.’ She picked up her knitting and carried on with it.
McGillivray persisted. ‘Is he ever out till the early hours?’
‘There are times when he has to stay with relatives of a dying person, or with somebody who’s in trouble. He’s like a doctor, really, always on call.’
‘Aren’t you scared, being alone in this big house on the dark winter nights?’
‘A bit nervous, sometimes, but some of the Guild ladies call occasionally to ask about things we’ve planned to raise money.’
The sound of a key in the lock heralded the return of the minister. ‘Oh hello, Inspector,’ he said cheerily, when he came in. ‘And Sergeant. Were you waiting to see me? Just a minute till I hang up my coat.’
He disappeared into the hall and came back rubbing his hands together. ‘It doesn’t get any warmer, does it? But we’ve Christmas to look forward to. What can I do for you?’
What a striking couple they made, Moore thought, fleetingly. She with her blonde, wavy hair, pink and white complexion and liquid blue eyes, and he with his dark good looks, piercing brown eyes and tall, muscular body.
‘We’re trying to trace anybody who came in contact with Miss Souter over, say, a week before she was killed,’ the inspector was saying. ‘They may have noticed, or heard her saying, something which could give us a lead, though they don’t think it’s important. We’ll be able to sort the chaff from the grain. When did you see her last, sir?’
‘Let me see.’ Adam Valentine lifted his hand to his broad forehead, but, after thinking for a moment he said, ‘No, I’m sorry. It was three weeks before her death that I paid her a visit, and I haven’t seen her at all since then.’
‘So you won’t be able to help us?’ McGillivray shrugged. ‘Ah, well, it’s all in the game. It’s a pity, in a way, that there aren’t more people like Miss Souter herself. She noticed everything that was going on, more than she was meant to sometimes, I imagine.’ He chuckled softly.
‘Yes, she did,’ Mrs Valentine said. ‘But she was a cruel, malicious gossip, and we’re very glad that there aren’t more like her in our village.’ Her voice had risen slightly.
The inspector smiled. ‘It’s just as well everybody’s made differently, but old Mrs Gray at the foot of Ashgrove Lane has been telling me quite a few things.’
‘I wouldn’t give too much credence to what Mrs Gray says,’ remarked the minister. ‘She’s failing, you know.’
‘She’s still got all her faculties, Adam.’ His wife sounded rather indignant.
‘She was telling me what she saw from her window,’ McGillivray went on. ‘And Mrs White, next door to her, was doing a bit of boasting about her various lovers – likely greatly embroidered, of course, to impress a bit more. It must be a lonely life for her, with her husband away so much.’
As far as Moore could see, the minister’s only reaction to this was a slight tightening of his jaw, but Mrs Valentine’s laugh was full of scorn.
‘Don’t waste your sympathy on her, Inspector. She has lots of comforters. As I told you before, she’s one of Adam’s failures. You’ve tried to reform her several times, haven’t you, dear?’ Her tone was lightly sarcastic as she glanced at her husband.
‘To little avail,’ he replied sadly.
‘I blame the men as much as her,’ Mrs Valentine went on, hotly. ‘Married men, most of them, and should know better. It’s their poor wives I feel sorry for.’
‘I suppose it’s her husband’s fault as much as anyone’s,’ observed McGillivray. ‘He should stay at home with her.’
Valentine surprised them all by jumping up abruptly and making for the door, his face expressionless.
His wife frowned. ‘Where are you going, Adam?’
‘I’ve just remembered. I promised to call on Alice Dawson tonight. Excuse me, Inspector, Sergeant.’ He rushed out.
Mrs Valentine laid down her knitting. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him these days, he’s so forgetful. He did see Janet Souter recently, a few days before she died. She gave him a jar of jam. Remember, Sergeant, the one you took away for some reason.’ Her fidgeting hands betrayed her anxiety.
‘We’d reason to believe the jar had been contaminated with arsenic,’ Moore murmured.
Her alarm was greater at this, and was made even more so when McGillivray leapt to his feet.
‘Excuse me, ma’am, may I use your telephone?’ His face was dark and grim.
‘It’s in the hall.’
He closed the door behind him, and dialled the police station, then waited impatiently until the receiver at the other end was lifted. ‘Black? Will you . . . ? What?’
His eyes narrowed as he listened, then he said, crisply, ‘No, Sergeant. He’s not mistaken, and he’s corroborated my suspicions. Take him in the car with you, collect your constable if he’s not there, and pick me up at the manse. What . . . ? Lock the place up, you damned fool! I’ll take full responsibility.’
He returned to the living room, where Muriel Valentine was sitting on the edge of her seat, her eyes troubled and her face ashen, the reason for all the activity having dawned on her.
‘You think Adam’s the murderer, don’t you?’ she whispered. ‘And that he’s gone to silence May White as well?’
David Moore had also just fully come to terms with the situation, and his sympathy went out to her even as his adrenaline started flowing with excitement.
‘Don’t be afraid to tell me.’ Her voice was stronger, quite calm now. ‘I’ve suspected, deep down, that his interest in her didn’t lie altogether in her soul.’
McGillivray took a seat near the door. ‘It looks very black for him, Mrs Valentine. Do you have any relatives, or close friends, you could call on for support?’
Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘I’ve no family left now. Both my parents are dead, and a minister’s wife can’t really make close friends in a small place like this without causing offence to others. I’ll be quite all right.’
She was putting a brave face on it, but McGillivray knew the anguish she must be experiencing. ‘I’ll leave my sergeant with you,’ he said, compassionately. ‘He’s quite a decent human being, in spite of his appearance.’
She summoned up a wan smile. ‘I’m sure he is. Thank you.’
A car horn sounded outside, and McGillivray rose and went out without another word. Moore jumped up and followed him into the hall. ‘Can I tell her about . . . ?’ he whispered.
‘It might be a comfort, lad, but maybe she’s had enough shocks tonight. Play it by ear, though.’ He strode out into the night.
The young sergeant went slowly back inside. ‘Would you like me to make tea or coffee for you, Mrs Valentine?’
She got to her feet quickly. ‘Please let me do it myself. It’ll help to take my mind off . . .’
He held the door open for her. ‘I’ll come through with you.’
‘I don’t intend to do anything silly, you don’t need to guard me.’
‘Oh, no.’ He was disappointed that she’d taken his offer the wrong way. ‘I just meant to be company for you, and the kitchen’s usually the most homely place in a house.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m a bit on edge. I should have understood.’ She busied herself filling the kettle, switching it on, laying out mugs, sugar and milk, while Moore sat down at the table.
‘I’ve never felt really happy since we came here,’ she said pensively. ‘It wasn’t the people. They made us very welcome, and we were soon part of their community, but Adam changed not long after we arrived. It was about the time he started telling me how worried he was about Mrs White and her behaviour, now that I come to think of it.’
Her preparations ready, she sat down to wait for the kettle to boil. ‘I think his intentions were good to begin with, but she must have ensnared him and he visited her more and more often. Then he stopped telling me when he was going, and that’s when I began to worry. If only I’d had somebody to . . . An outsider might have realised what was going on before it was too late.’
Pouring milk into the mugs, she carried on, almost as if she were speaking to herself. ‘I suppose I was too tangled up with my own emotions at the time. My mother had just died, and I was devastated, though she wasn’t my real mother. She told me about that when I was old enough to understand.’
Elated that she’d brought up the subject, David Moore felt sure that it wouldn’t come as such a shock to her now, if he told her about Mrs Wakeford, and it might compensate her for the terrible ordeal she was about to face.
Her monologue continued. ‘My mother and father – I’ll always remember them as that – couldn’t have any children, but their solicitor knew of a young, unmarried girl who was having a baby, so he arranged for them to adopt it. I’ve always felt sorry for that poor girl, having to give up her love-child like that, and I’ve often wondered what became of her.’
The sergeant had been trying to figure out a way of letting her know, and he admired her all the more for the concern she was showing for the mother she’d never known. ‘Mrs Valentine,’ he ventured at last, ‘wouldn’t you like to find out who your real mother was?’
She rose to make the tea, and her sudden silence disquieted him. Had he made a mistake? Perhaps he hadn’t been sensitive enough, and should apologise, try to explain that he’d only said it out of kindness and to find someone to care for her, but the proper words wouldn’t come.
Placing a cosy over the teapot, she resumed her seat. ‘It’s funny you should say that, Sergeant. I’ve been thinking about it ever since Mum died. It would be nice to have somebody of my own, especially now. I’m scared I won’t be able to cope if . . .’
She gulped, and he hoped that she wasn’t about to dissolve into tears. He’d never known how to deal with weeping women.
Fortunately for him, she carried on speaking. ‘I don’t know where to start looking, though, because the old solicitor, the only link I know, died a few years ago.’
Taking the plunge, Moore burst out, ‘I know, but we traced her.’ Seeing her mouth fall open, he rushed on. ‘We’d unearthed this illegitimate child in the course of our investigations, you see, and we had to check it out.’
‘Do you mean . . . ? My real mother . . . ? Is she someone here in Tollerton? Somebody I know?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘Not Janet Souter.’ The horror of this possibility was quite unthinkable.
‘No, no. It’s . . . Mrs Wakeford.’ He held his breath.
‘Mrs Wakeford? But that would be marvellous, she’s such a kind, gentle person, but . . . Are you sure of the facts?’
Her delighted smile, and her ensuing abstraction, told Moore that she was dreaming of a new relationship which could be about to open for her, so he rose and poured the tea. ‘There’s one thing you’ll have to consider.’ He looked apologetic.
The smile was still on her face as she said, ‘What’s that?’
‘Would Mrs Wakeford want to be reminded of her indiscreet past? She’s kept it hidden for a long time.’
He thought of Mabel Wakeford’s desperate attempt to stop Janet Souter from spreading this very information – adding arsenic to the jam, to which Muriel Valentine herself had almost fallen a victim. That would have been the ultimate irony, but the poor woman had been driven to it. The minister’s wife would fold up altogether if that came out.
‘So you think I shouldn’t approach her?’ Mrs Valentine asked, after a pause.
‘It’s none of my business. If you feel strongly enough that you want to make yourself known to her, just go ahead and do it. She’d probably be pleased her daughter was a minister’s wife.’
The mention of her husband brought the clouds back into her eyes. ‘She wouldn’t want to be related to a murderer’s wife.’
Moore hastened to console her. ‘It’s just suspicion on the inspector’s part. Your husband could be innocent.’
They both knew it was a false hope.