While waiting for the Chief Inspector’s visit, Edgar Holroyd was attempting to keep himself occupied in his basement workshop. No thought of lunch crossed his mind; scarcely anything had passed his lips since he had stood in the cellar of the house in Tolladine Road yesterday evening.
At the sound of Sergeant Lambert’s ring at the bell he came dragging up the stairs to open the door. His face was haggard. He made no move to show the two men into the sitting room but stood dumbly in the hall, gazing into the Chief’s face with an utterly lost, stranded look, as if barely hanging on to the outermost fringes of everyday life. The Chief suggested they might all go inside and sit down. ‘Oh . . . yes,’ Edgar agreed in an abstracted fashion. He remained motionless.
The Chief took charge of the situation. He crossed the hall and opened the door of a room on the right. ‘All right if we go in here?’ he asked.
‘Oh . . . yes,’ Edgar said again. He jerked himself into motion.
‘Have you seen your doctor?’ the Chief asked when they were all finally seated.
Edgar shook his head.
‘I think perhaps you should,’ the Chief advised. ‘You’ve had a tremendous shock.’
Edgar shook his head again. ‘I’ll be all right.’ He looked as if he might at any moment break down completely.
The Chief gave him the results of the post-mortem in as gentle and undramatic a fashion as the grim facts would allow. Edgar listened with his head bowed and his eyes closed, his hands clasped before him.
At the mention of his wife’s pregnancy his head shot up. He stared at the Chief, then he dropped his head again into his hands.
‘Did you know she was pregnant?’ the Chief asked.
Edgar could only shake his head. The Chief gave him time to recover. ‘She couldn’t have known herself,’ Edgar said at last in unsteady tones. ‘It was what she wanted more than anything. What we both wanted.’
The Chief regarded him. According to his statement Edgar had last seen his wife on the morning of Friday, November 16, when he left for work; she had appeared in every way as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary had recently happened in their lives, there had been no disagreement of any kind between them. They got on well together; in the four years of their marriage there had never been any quarrel. They were both quiet and self-contained, with interests of their own.
He had told Claire earlier that he wouldn’t be home that Friday evening till around ten or ten-fifteen, as he had to attend a council meeting – this happened from time to time. Claire didn’t mind, she never minded. It was in any case one of her evenings at the College of Further Education. She had no need to bother about a meal for him, he would get himself a snack before the meeting as he always did.
He had spent the day at work as usual. At five-thirty he had left the office and walked to a nearby sandwich bar. He had gone there alone, had eaten alone, but he had seen and spoken to a couple of female clerks from the office who were also eating there.
He had left the sandwich bar at around six-fifteen for the meeting, which was due to start at six-thirty and normally ended soon after nine. Coffee and sandwiches were then always served and people stood around, talking.
But that Friday evening the meeting ended a good deal earlier than usual, amid a certain amount of uproar. Some highly controversial cut-back proposals figured on the agenda; demonstrators from action groups staged noisy protests; there was much lively argument and some ill-feeling in the debate. Edgar had been present throughout.
In the end the meeting couldn’t continue. At about seven-thirty it was adjourned to allow time for tempers to cool, less provocative measures to be worked out. There was no standing about talking, no coffee and sandwiches. Edgar drove straight home. He had supplied the Chief with the names of the two female clerks in the sandwich bar as well as several council officials who could vouch for his presence throughout the meeting. The Chief had already known of the disrupted council proceedings which had been fully reported.
Edgar had reached home at about a quarter to eight. He wasn’t expecting Claire back from her class till getting on for eight-thirty. He went upstairs to change his clothes, then along to the kitchen to make himself some coffee.
Shortly after eight, while he was still in the kitchen, the phone rang in the hall. It was the class lecturer from the college, asking to speak to Claire. Edgar said surely she had been at his class and was told she hadn’t attended that evening. The lecturer was arranging a theatre visit in connection with the course and Claire had earlier expressed interest. He had to know definitely in the next day or two if Claire would be going, he had to book seats. Edgar promised to pass on the message. He was not in the slightest degree worried when he replaced the phone. He imagined Claire had decided to skip her class and go to the cinema or theatre instead, as she had done more than once before. He had no interest in such entertainments himself and she never minded going alone.
He returned to the kitchen, reflecting that she would probably not be home now till ten or half past. He finished his coffee and went down to his basement workshop.
Just before ten he went upstairs to watch the news on TV. The instant he switched on the sitting room light he saw the envelope propped up against the clock on the mantelpiece. He knew at once what would be inside; he had found more than one such envelope in the last four years. It would be a brief note from Claire to say she was off to stay with her Aunt May – Mrs May Finch, Claire’s only close relative, her mother’s sister, a widow living in a cottage in a village some miles away.
His own acquaintance with Mrs Finch was slight, though amicable enough on both sides. He had met her on two or three occasions before his marriage and had thought her a sensible, good-hearted woman. The wedding had taken place very quietly, in the Cannonbridge register office, at Claire’s express wish. Mrs Finch had not been present, there had been nothing in the way of a reception.
Claire had gone off to her aunt’s in this way on a number of previous occasions, leaving home without warning while he was out at work, returning equally unheralded days or weeks later – again, while he was out of the house. He would come in from work one evening and there she would be, as if she had never been away.
There was no phone in Mrs Finch’s cottage. In the note Claire had left the first time she had gone, she had said she would be grateful if he would make no attempt to get in touch with her. She needed time to be on her own, she would be back in a week or two. He had forced himself to accept this, though not without many misgivings and much anxiety; they had been married only a few months.
But after ten days she had indeed returned. She had offered no further explanation, certainly no apology for any distress she had caused. In fact she had made no reference whatever to her absence, behaving in her customary calm and pleasant way. She had taken up her ordinary life again cheerfully enough, things had continued much as before. He had felt it would be churlish to force a discussion on her when she had made it so plain it would be unwelcome.
He couldn’t say how Claire had travelled to her aunt’s on these occasions, she had never told him. Claire didn’t own a car, she had never learned to drive. She could have got there by train or bus, or she might have used a taxi. Six months after her first such departure he had come home again one evening to find the same thing had happened again. He was a good deal less agitated this time; she had stayed away for two weeks. There was then an interval of a whole year before her third departure, which had lasted the best part of three weeks. By then he was inured to it, it had scarcely troubled him at all; he had come to accept that that was the way Claire was, the way it seemed likely she would continue to be. There had been one or two further departures, the last being some eight or nine months ago, when she had stayed away a little over two weeks. None of these departures had ever appeared planned, she always seemed to take off very much on the spur of the moment, he had never seen any warning signs. And she had invariably left a few minor matters unattended to.
Although she always appeared poised and self-possessed her nature inclined her to bottle things up. He believed that was the root cause of these abrupt departures. When a certain degree of tension had built up inside her she sought to discharge it by removing herself from everyday life, running back to where she had been a carefree child.
When, therefore, he had found Claire’s note on the evening of Friday, November 16, he had read it all with philosophic acceptance, certainly without distress. During the weekend he remembered the phone call from the lecturer so he rang the college on the Monday morning, leaving a message for the lecturer to say Claire would not be going on the theatre trip. He had also informed the office that Claire wouldn’t be attending any classes for the next week or two, she had gone to stay with a relative.
No, he couldn’t produce the note Claire had left. He hadn’t kept it, there had been no reason to, he had never kept any of the notes she had left. Nor could he shed any light on when Claire might last have eaten. He had no idea at what time she had left the house that day; it might have been shortly after he left for work in the morning. He could tell them nothing of his wife’s weekday eating pattern, he was never at home then.
This long and detailed statement squared well enough with the very much briefer statement Edgar had made to the officer from the house-to-house team who had called at Fairbourne on the Sunday Harry Lingard’s body had been found. The Chief had looked out that earlier statement; in it Edgar had said he had heard nothing unusual or suspicious in the neighbourhood of the common during the evening or night of November 16. He had attended a council meeting, had got home at a quarter to eight, had seen nothing of Harry on his rounds as he drove home, he had noticed nothing unusual on the common. He had remained in the house for the rest of the evening, had gone to bed at his usual time, around eleven. There had been nothing to disturb him during the night.
The officer had asked if anyone else lived at Fairbourne and was told Edgar’s wife lived there. Had she heard anything? He was told she hadn’t been at home that evening, she was staying with her aunt. Edgar had made no mention to the officer of finding Claire’s note, or the circumstances of her departure, but then, the Chief reflected, in the same circumstances he would himself have said nothing about it to a police officer.
Edgar sat in remote silence with his head bowed as the Chief regarded him. Checks were currently going forward to verify the time Edgar had reached his office that Friday morning, the way in which he had spent the rest of the day. Inquiries were also under way among taxi-drivers, busmen, railway staff, in an attempt to discover any sighting of Claire that Friday.
There had been no bag or grip of any kind in the cellar at Tolladine Road, no jewellery or other item of value on the body; the pockets of Claire’s coat were empty. Edgar had done his best to describe for them such valuable items as she might have been wearing or carrying. Her chequebook and bank card – she owned no credit cards. A ring of keys; maybe a hundred pounds or two in notes. Gold wristwatch, wedding ring, engagement ring – a diamond solitaire. She might have been wearing additional rings but he couldn’t be certain which; she wore other rings as fancy took her. She might also have worn a pin, a brooch or bracelet. Earrings, possibly; a gold neck chain – she had several. She hadn’t taken her jewel-box with her, she never did.
At the Chief’s request Edgar had looked through the box to ascertain if any particular piece he remembered might be missing. But he hadn’t known exactly what she had owned. And he had still been in a state of shock, his brain wasn’t working with total clarity.
There were one or two further points the Chief now wished to raise. He began by asking if Claire had had any kind of job in recent times.
Edgar made a strong effort to rouse himself. He told the Chief Claire had never had a full-time job since they were married but she had done occasional relief work in the office at Mansell’s. He explained that his younger brother Lester, who worked for Mansell’s, had oversight of the office. ‘One of the female clerks was away ill and they couldn’t find a suitable replacement. Lester asked Claire if she could possibly step in for a week or two, he made a great favour of it.’ He cast his mind back. ‘That would be about eighteen months ago. Claire found she enjoyed it, she went quite a few times after that, when they were stuck for someone. It might be for two or three days, or a week or two, sometimes longer. The last time was for several weeks, that was back in the spring. She finished around May or June.’
‘Why did she stop going?’
‘She told me she wasn’t enjoying it any more, they were taking her very much for granted, expecting her to fill in whenever it suited them. I think it was the last long stint that did it, the novelty had worn off by then.’ He gave the ghost of a smile. ‘They’d made a big fuss of her the first time or two, then all that fell away. It was just an ordinary job of work, solid slogging, not particularly interesting to her. She had no need to go out to work. If it was occupation she wanted, then she’d prefer to go to classes or do some charity work.’
‘Did anyone at Mansell’s try to get her to change her mind after she stopped going?’
‘Tom Mansell phoned her here, asking her to reconsider. I know he phoned at least twice because I happened to be in the house on two occasions when he rang. But she wouldn’t be talked into going back.’
The Chief asked what work Claire had done before her marriage.
‘She went to Hartley’s after she left school,’ Edgar told him. ‘She was there for some years. Then she took a job with the local council, in the housing department where I work – that’s how we met. She was there two or three years, until we got married.’ He stared down at his hands. ‘She was very domesticated. She enjoyed having a home of her own, she even liked housework.’ He drew a ragged breath. ‘And we were always hoping to start a family.’ He fell silent, then he added, ‘She talked recently of going in for more serious study, taking a course that might lead somewhere. I thought it a very good idea.’
The Chief asked if Edgar knew of any close women friends Claire might have had.
‘She wasn’t the kind to have close women friends,’ Edgar told him. ‘She was an only child, she didn’t even have cousins her own age. She knew a good many women, of course, one way and another, but I can’t think any of them were at all close.’
‘What about your brother’s wife?’ the Chief asked. ‘Was Claire friendly with her?’
Edgar shook his head. ‘I can’t say she was. Diane’s father is Tom Mansell, the builder.’ He fell silent again, looking infinitely weary. ‘I was against the marriage. I thought Lester was too young to tie himself down.’ He grimaced. ‘That got me off to a bad start with Diane. When I got married myself, a year after Lester, Diane wasn’t in the mood to be very friendly towards any wife of mine, whoever she might be. But I don’t think Diane and Claire would have hit it off in any case, they had nothing much in common, very different temperaments.’ After Claire told Lester she was no longer willing to act as a fill-in at Mansell’s office, the lack of warmth between the two households had turned into a decided coolness. Contact grew even less frequent, eventually ceasing altogether.
The Chief turned to the matter of Claire’s finances. Had she owned anything substantial? Property, shares, and the like? Had she made a will?
Edgar shook his head in reply to both questions. ‘She didn’t even have a separate bank account,’ he told them. ‘We had a joint account.’ She had always been sensible in her spending. She had come from a very modest background; to the best of his knowledge all she had ever inherited had been a few pieces of old jewellery from her godmother. Claire had never made a will. Apart from personal belongings she had had nothing to leave.
Lastly, the Chief asked if Claire had kept a diary.
Only a little pocket diary, he was told, to note down appointments and so forth. It would probably have been in her shoulder-bag.
When the Chief got up to leave, Edgar suddenly said, ‘Surely the two murders must be in some way connected?’
‘That’s a very open question at this stage,’ the Chief responded.
Edgar’s tone grew agitated. ‘Both killed in the same sort of way, at roughly the same time – they must be connected!’
‘It’s far too early to come to any firm conclusion,’ the Chief said patiently.
Edgar began to pace the room. ‘Claire was killed because she saw something. I’m sure of it! Something to do with Harry Lingard’s murder.’ His face was ravaged. ‘She happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘It could just as easily have been the other way round,’ the Chief pointed out. ‘Harry Lingard could have chanced to see something of Claire’s murder. He could have been the one who happened to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.’