Murder in the Morning

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘You don’t mean Doctor Shergold?’

  ‘’sright.’

  ‘Whatever makes her think that?’

  ‘Laura’s a bit of a nosey parker,’ Gloria continued, draining her mug and drawing the back of her hand across her mouth. ‘She were doing his room one evening and she noticed he’d left his cupboard open. She had a peek inside, and what do you think she found?’

  Gloria paused for dramatic effect and Melissa shook her head.

  ‘I’ve no idea!’

  Gloria leaned forward and dropped her voice to a hoarse stage whisper. ‘A jacket!’ she announced. ‘Reeking of fancy perfume! Laura reckons,’ she continued, a salacious gleam in her toffee-brown eyes, ‘old Po-face – that’s what they all calls him cos he never smiles – had been having it off with that sekertary for weeks. She reckons he’s a two-coat man.’

  ‘Has she told the police about it?’ asked Melissa, wondering if ‘two-coat’ could be local dialect for ‘two-faced’ and thinking that it might well be a suitable epithet for Rodney Shergold.

  ‘Not she. Avoids the coppers like the plague since they done her Jimmy for joy-riding in a borrowed car.’ Plainly, Gloria well understood this point of view. ‘Anyway,’ she added with a shrug, ‘the jacket might not be there now. It were weeks ago Laura found it.’

  Melissa played thoughtfully with her empty coffee mug and reflected on what now seemed the certainty that Rodney Shergold had been having an affair with Angy. Still, the idea that they could have had the kind of torrid relationship that leads to murder was another matter. From what she knew of him, the man simply didn’t have the character, or the guts.

  From what she knew of him. That didn’t amount to much and most of it was second-hand, picked up from his wife’s artless prattle and staff-room gossip. Maybe, as Gloria had hinted, there was another side to his nature, carefully hidden from the outside world, a side that was capable of strong passion and sudden violence. There were plenty of people around who were not what they seemed. Crime writers would be lost without them.

  Gloria’s round face was pink with excitement. She loved a bit of gossip and this morsel must seem particularly juicy. She should not be encouraged to share it with too many people.

  ‘I do hope,’ said Melissa, trying not to sound censorious, ‘you won’t go spreading this around the village. There’s probably nothing in it and it would be dreadful to cast suspicion on an innocent person.’

  ‘Ooh, don’t worry, I won’t say nothing to no one else round here,’ promised Gloria. ‘Only you, cos you’re into this sort of thing with your books.’ Admiration shone in her luminous eyes. ‘I’ll bet you could find some clues the coppers have missed.’

  ‘I think that’s most unlikely,’ said Melissa, wishing it could be true. It would be good to make Ken Harris admit that for once he had suspected the wrong man.

  Gloria’s expression became pensive. ‘I do hope it wasn’t that arty chap. Laura told her sister he’s a real nice gentleman, not like old Po-face, he’s a real pain in the backside she says . . . ’

  ‘You really shouldn’t speak of Doctor Shergold like that,’ said Melissa firmly. ‘I think it’s time we got back to work, don’t you?’

  Obediently, Gloria slid her ample bottom from her stool. ‘Ooh my, is that the time!’

  After Gloria had gone home, Melissa ate a sandwich before driving into Cheltenham to do some shopping. She was back at her car, stowing her purchases, when someone called her name. It was Sybil Bliss, laden with bulging plastic carrier bags.

  ‘Oh Melissa, what a piece of luck! I was going to ring you. Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Of course.’ Melissa glanced at her watch. ‘Why don’t we go and have a cup of tea?’

  ‘Super idea! I’ll just dump this lot in the car.’

  They found a café a short distance from the car park.

  ‘Shall I pour?’ said Melissa when the waitress brought their tea.

  ‘Oh no, let me!’ responded Sybil eagerly. Her movements as she set the inverted cups upright on their saucers and manipulated milk jug, teapot and hot water jug were precise and just a little fussy. ‘There we are! Do you take sugar?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Have a scone? They’re simply smothered in butter, and there’s jam and cream too. I’m afraid your friend Miss Ash wouldn’t approve!’ Iris had given Sybil a severe lecture on the dangers of eating animal products of any kind.

  ‘Never mind, she’ll never know, will she?’ said Melissa. They chuckled and helped themselves, exchanging guilty glances like naughty schoolgirls.

  ‘Have you done anything more with your flower pictures?’ Melissa asked.

  Sybil’s smile faded. ‘Not yet. As a matter of fact, I was going to have a chat with Angy, you see, at this week’s art class, but of course . . . ’ She bit her lip and played with her teaspoon. ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it? Such a lovely girl! Whoever would want to kill her?’

  ‘I’m afraid the police suspect Mr Willard,’ said Melissa.

  ‘Oh no, I can’t believe that!’ Melissa looked up in surprise at the earnest ring in Sybil’s voice. ‘I know he had a rather possessive attitude towards her – I told you about that time he came into her class, didn’t I? – but from the way he looked at her, you’d have thought she was the most perfect and precious thing on earth to him. I can’t think he’d ever hurt her.’

  ‘Not even if he found out she was less than perfect?’

  Sybil shook her head, sending her wings of hair swinging across her chin. With two forefingers she tucked them behind her ears.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. It’d be rather like having a lovely picture that you thought was a genuine old master and then being told it was a fake. You’d be very disappointed, even angry, but it would still be beautiful. You wouldn’t destroy it, surely?’

  ‘Some people might.’ Neither Harris nor Iris, Melissa reflected, had expressed any such view. ‘I suppose it’s a matter of temperament.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure the police will find out they’re making a mistake.’ Sybil appeared entirely confident in her assessment of Barney’s character and Melissa felt warmer towards her by the minute. ‘Maybe she was carrying on with someone they don’t know about. There’s that chap Eddie, her landlord.’

  ‘I’d thought of that . . . in fact, she once mentioned Eddie to me. Said he didn’t charge her much rent for her flat. I remember at the time wondering why. What do you know about him?’

  ‘Nothing really, except that last week Angy showed us a sketch she’d done of him. It was with some others. She was good at heads – she’d done several of us, from memory. There was one of Mr Willard, and the head of department, I can’t remember his name . . . ’

  ‘Doctor Shergold?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Now I come to think of it, there was one of you.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I’ve seen the drawings,’ interrupted Melissa. She ignored the question in Sybil’s face; she could tell her about Harris’s visit some other time. ‘Did she make any comment about this man Eddie?’

  Sybil frowned, absent-mindedly twirling a strand of hair round her fingers.

  ‘So far as I remember, she just said something like, “That’s Eddie who owns the house where I live.” The police will have interviewed him, surely.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Yes, of course they had. Harris had mentioned that the owner of the house was a social worker. He’d been away at the time of the murder but if, as seemed likely, he’d been having an affair with Angy . . . suppose he was married and his wife had found out, and taken the opportunity while her husband was absent to do away with her rival?

  ‘I mustn’t keep rattling on like this!’ Sybil’s voice, apologetic and embarrassed, interrupted the wild onrush of Melissa’s thoughts. ‘I’m quite forgetting what I wanted to ask you.’

  ‘Yes, you said you were going to phone me.’ With an effort, Melissa hauled her mind back from its helter-skelter ride.

  ‘Yes. It w
as just that I and the others in the class – at least, the ones who turned up yesterday, a lot of people didn’t bother – anyway, we felt it would be nice to send some flowers and a card or something to her relatives. We could all sign it . . . ’

  ‘What a nice thought! I’m sure they’d appreciate it. They live in London but I can get their address for you.’

  ‘That would be so kind. There’s one other thing. As I said, not everyone was there yesterday and I don’t know how to contact the others. Is there any way I can get hold of their addresses?’

  Melissa was touched by the look of gentle compassion in Sybil’s eyes and thought what a thoroughly nice person she was, despite the odd bout of histrionics.

  ‘No problem,’ she assured her. ‘I’ll get them from the register tomorrow. Will you be at the workshop?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. I do so look forward to it.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Melissa glanced at her watch. ‘I’d better be going. I like to get home before the rush hour.’

  ‘Me too.’ They paid their bill and strolled back to the car park. As they reached it, a white Ford Fiesta heading for the exit drew up alongside them, waiting for a gap in the traffic. Eleanor Shergold was at the wheel with Snappy in the back. Melissa waved and Eleanor wound down the window.

  ‘Hullo, Melissa,’ she said. The bright April sun was full in her eyes and she shaded them with one hand. Recognising his friend, Snappy jumped up at the window and barked.

  ‘Hullo, Eleanor!’ Melissa glanced over her shoulder and gestured to Sybil, standing behind her. ‘Can you spare a moment? I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.’

  ‘Down, Snappy!’ said Eleanor ineffectively. She peered beneath her hand at Sybil, then jumped as an impatient hoot sounded behind them. She glanced in her mirror and fumbled with her gear lever. ‘Some other time!’ she said hastily, looking thoroughly flustered. She edged the Fiesta forward, found the road clear and let the clutch in with a jerk. The following car, a Volvo with a fat, red-faced man at the wheel, shot out on her tail.

  ‘Well, really! The manners of some people!’ commented Sybil as they made their way to their cars. ‘I’d have made him wait!’

  ‘That was Doctor Shergold’s wife,’ explained Melissa.

  ‘You mean the head of our department at college? Isn’t she the one you tried to persuade to come to our art class?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘She seems a very nervous lady.’

  Melissa shrugged. ‘She’s been so conditioned by her husband that she instinctively kowtows to any man who says “boo” to her.’

  ‘I didn’t realise he was that sort. Of course, I’ve only set eyes on him a couple of times.’

  ‘Eleanor told me her late father was Principal of Brigston. Rodney was a lecturer there and they cherished hopes of a chair for him but unfortunately Daddy died before he could wangle it. Reading between the lines, I suspect that Rodney has never quite forgiven either of them.’

  ‘You mean, he married her just to further his career?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t for her looks, was it?’ said Melissa with a grin. ‘No, that was catty of me. She’s not a bad sort but there are times when I could shake her.’

  ‘How absolutely dreadful to be so downtrodden.’ With her key in her hand, Sybil stood by her car, her mobile features working overtime to register shock and disapproval. ‘Poor woman!’

  ‘Oh, she seems happy enough, living in his shadow,’ said Melissa. ‘She’s got him on a pedestal.’ She moved towards her own car, parked a few yards away. ‘See you tomorrow!’

  Sixteen

  On Thursday afternoon, Melissa arrived at the college to find Barney alone in the staffroom. She greeted him warmly but he responded with a perfunctory nod and immediately got up to leave.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ she asked. ‘It’s only half-past one and you haven’t finished your coffee.’

  ‘Got some things to set up. I’ll take it with me.’ Avoiding her eye, he scooped up portfolio, briefcase and half-empty mug and went out. Ken Harris again, thought Melissa angrily. He was so sure that Barney was his man, even though the evidence against him wasn’t strong enough to arrest him, that he’d had the cheek to warn him off. Once he had his teeth into something he was like a bull terrier; you’d have to wrench his jaws apart to make him drop it . . . or produce some equally strong evidence to blow his case to bits. ‘Well, so I will,’ Melissa informed the empty room through gritted teeth. ‘You just wait, you mutton-headed copper!’

  She found her own register in its usual place and then took from the ‘Tuesday’ pigeonhole the one marked ‘Line Drawing and Water-colour’. As she opened it, a faint breath of perfume escaped. Angy had moved in an aura of musk and here it was, clinging to the papers she had handled so many times. Was this the perfume that an inquisitive cleaner had detected on Rodney Shergold’s jacket?

  At the back of the folder was a neatly typed list of names and addresses which she photocopied before going downstairs to Rodney Shergold’s office. He was on his feet, gathering up books from his desk. He glanced up as she entered, gave a curt nod and began hunting through some papers with jerky, impatient movements.

  ‘I wish they’d hurry up and find me another girl,’ he muttered irritably. ‘It’s most inconvenient having no one to keep things in order.’

  ‘I’m sure it must be.’

  If he noticed the heavy slice of sarcasm that Melissa laid on the words, he paid no heed. He picked up his jacket from the back of his chair and dragged it over his shoulders. ‘I’m lecturing in the main building this afternoon. Was there something you wanted?’

  ‘I was wondering if you could give me Angy’s address?’ she said casually. She could, of course, have obtained it from the Bursar’s secretary but was interested to see if the question brought any reaction. She was not disappointed; if a firebell had gone off within a yard of his ear, he could not have appeared more shaken.

  ‘Wh . . . what makes you think I would know that?’ His sallow face turned a dull pink and his voice, never particularly strong or resonant, became a querulous squeak.

  Melissa received his alarmed stare with an innocent smile and a careful blend of honey and vinegar in her voice as she replied, ‘I thought, as she worked for you, you’d be bound to have a note of it . . . but never mind, I can always ask Mrs Ellis. Oh, excuse me, Doctor Shergold.’ She raised a finger and he gave a nervous start. ‘Did you realise you have a smudge of chalk on your lapel?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, er, thank you.’ He brushed blindly at the front of his jacket.

  ‘No, the other one!’

  But Rodney Shergold, normally so dapper and careful of his person, was not interested in chalk smudges; his one desire was to escape from further conversation with Melissa. With a sulphurous glance at her, he grabbed his books and papers and rushed out.

  ‘Well,’ Melissa murmured aloud as she listened to his footsteps pattering through the hall, followed by the slam of the outer door, ‘there goes a man with a guilty secret. Now, I wonder . . . ’ She glanced round the room and her eye fell on the desk where Angy used to sit. It had been cleared of papers; the typewriter was covered and the chair pushed firmly into place. The police would have been through every drawer with a toothcomb in their search for clues; there was nothing to be gained there. But the cupboard in the corner, behind Rodney Shergold’s desk, was for his personal use. Perhaps the police hadn’t searched in there; if not, they could have missed a vital clue after all. Melissa dumped her register and handbag on a chair, marched round the desk and tried the cupboard door. It was locked.

  ‘Bother!’ she muttered. She glanced at her watch; in ten minutes her class was due to start. She tried the door again, then pulled open the top drawer in Shergold’s desk. It was only two or three inches deep, more like a tray divided into sections containing a neat arrangement of pins, paperclips and other small office requisites. In one of the compartments lay a key. A little hesitantly and with an ear cocked for appro
aching footsteps, she picked it up and tried it in the cupboard lock. It fitted and the door swung open.

  It was a narrow wooden cupboard with a shelf at the top and a rail below. The shelf and the floor were piled with books, boxes and folders stuffed with papers. She picked up a dusty-looking volume at random and flipped through the pages. It contained reprints of some papers presented to a local antiquarian society – probably research material for the book on neolithic burial mounds. She dropped it back on the pile.

  Hanging from the rail was an empty coat-hanger. Remembering what Gloria had said, Melissa took it down and sniffed it, hoping to detect some tell-tale trace of scent, but there was nothing. Well, it had been a forlorn hope at best. Disconsolately, she relocked the cupboard, replaced the key and went slowly upstairs to her classroom.

  It was inevitable that the previous week’s tragedy should colour the contributions to the writers’ workshop. With few exceptions, they were meditations on death, bereavement and the uncertainty of the human condition. Sybil had composed a poem about dead flowers, each quatrain ending with the line ‘And the spent petals fall, one by one, to the ground’, which she read aloud to a receptive audience, a note of melancholy in her voice and a trace of moisture dimming her eyes.

  By four o’clock Melissa’s spirits were at rock bottom. Normally, she thoroughly enjoyed her Thursday afternoons; today, she was thankful when the session was over and the aspiring authors trooped out, clutching their masterpieces and chanting their thanks.

  Only Sybil Bliss lingered behind. ‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘Would you care to come round to my house for a cup of tea? I only live a couple of streets away.’

  Melissa accepted without hesitation. She felt jaded and in need of emotional uplift. Iris had an American cousin staying with her and had been too busy dragging him round every art gallery and stately home in the county to have time for her. In any case, she had recently shown a disconcerting facility for mind-reading. The last thing Melissa wanted at the moment was for Iris to find out that she was planning to probe into the circumstances of Angy’s death. Sybil would be a far more sympathetic companion.