Death of a Milliner: Riley Rochester Investigates Book 9 (Riley ~Rochester Investigates)

by Wendy Soliman

  ‘I’ll go and get Pa. I just called in to say hello before I go on shift. He ain’t been too well and I like to keep an eye on him.’

  He disappeared into a back room, leaving the detectives with an opportunity to examine their surroundings and for Riley to wonder why Alfred had felt the need to explain himself.

  ‘The man has taste and enough money to indulge it,’ Riley remarked. ‘None of these furnishings are cheap and he has an eclectic taste in literature,’ he added, examining the spines of the books on display before pointing to an ormolu clock. ‘That would have set him back a pretty penny. Faulkner’s inheritance must have been substantial.’

  ‘If eclectic means he likes different stuff, then I tend to agree,’ Salter said, glaring out the window. ‘He keeps the place nice, I’ll say that for him.’

  Riley grinned. He’d missed Salter’s down to earth mode of expression.

  ‘Sorry to have kept you.’

  Alfred returned to the room with an older man. The striking resemblance between the pair settled any doubt about their relationship. Alfred was running to fat but his father had maintained a trim figure and a full head of grey hair. There was no doubt that he had once been handsome. He’d aged well and Riley could imagine him making a favourable impression upon the ladies whom he called upon in the execution of his duties as a salesman.

  ‘This is my father, Ralph Faulkner.’

  ‘Mr Faulkner. I am Chief Inspector Rochester and this is Sergeant Salter.’

  ‘Please sit down, gentlemen,’ Faulkner said affably. ‘Whatever it is you think I can help you with, I shall be only too pleased to assist.’ Faulkner fell into a chair, wheezing. ‘Excuse me,’ he huffed. ‘Damned asthma’s playing up.’

  Riley waited for him to recover his breath before speaking. ‘You are acquainted with Mrs Jessie Faulkner?’

  ‘Ma?’ It was Alfred who answered after fixing his father with a bemused look. ‘What’s she done to put you onto us?’

  ‘What an interesting reaction,’ Riley replied. ‘What makes you suppose she has done anything?’

  Perhaps sensing his son’s hostility, Ralph placed a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Jessie is her own worst enemy, Chief Inspector. She and I lived together for several years when we were too young to realise that we would never suit. Such diametrically opposed characters as ours…well, we would have finished up killing one another.’

  Riley shared a sideways glance with Salter, thinking he might soon have reason to regret his choice of words.

  ‘Yet you had two sons out of wedlock,’ Salter said, unable to hide his disapproval.

  ‘That might be morally reprehensible in your eyes, Sergeant, but to be best of my knowledge, it’s not against the law. Jessie was always on at me to marry her, but she knew as well as I did that it would have been a disaster. Even so, she can be stubborn and determined and seemed to think that a child would resolve our differences. I stayed for Alfred’s sake, but by the time our second son was born the situation had become intolerable. We were arguing all the time and it was no atmosphere in which to raise children. So we went our separate ways.’ He paused, struggling for breath. ‘Well, I cut my losses, to put it bluntly.’

  Riley nodded. ‘You subsequently came into an inheritance?’

  ‘I did, and used part of it to help Jessie establish the business she dreamed of owning. I paid the rent on a cottage where the boys were raised in comfort and I ensured that they were educated. I might not have put a ring on her finger, Chief Inspector, but I lived up to my responsibilities in other more practical ways, and at least the boys weren’t raised in a war zone. Jessie is the jealous type, you see, and cross-questioned me every day when I returned home, convinced I’d been with other women. It became tedious.’ He paused to catch his breath. ‘Now, what’s this about?’

  Riley cleared his throat. ‘I regret to inform you both that Mrs Jessie Faulkner is dead,’ he said, wondering if they would be shocked or feel the need to celebrate.

  ‘Dead?’ Alfred looked mystified as he glanced at his father. ‘What happened? Was she taken ill?’

  ‘She was murdered, I’m afraid.’

  Riley’s comment brought on a prolonged coughing fit from Ralph. Alfred stirred himself to fetch his father a glass of water, sitting on the arm of his chair and patting his back as he sipped at it.

  ‘Murdered?’ Ralph looked bemused. ‘Who on earth would want to murder her? Well, apart from me when we were young and she drove me demented. Sorry.’ He held up a hand. ‘That was in poor taste.’

  ‘That is what we are attempting to ascertain,’ Riley replied quietly. ‘I would sympathise with you for your loss but, excuse me, neither of you seems particularly upset.’

  ‘I am many things, Chief Inspector,’ Ralph replied, ‘and I am not especially proud of some of them. But what I am not is a hypocrite. Jessie was an attractive chit in her youth, but it didn’t take me long to discover that she was also very determined. She wanted everything on her terms. When we first met, I was travelling a lot, all over the south, selling accessories to shops like the one she wanted to start. That’s how I met her. She was nearing the end of her apprenticeship in a place close by here. I was smitten at first; I’ll admit it.’

  ‘Take it easy, Pa,’ Alfred said, when he was reduced to coughing some more. ‘Let me tell it. You’ll set yourself back.’

  ‘Nah, I’m all right. It’s just hard to imagine Jessie finally being out of our lives. Long story short, Chief Inspector, I helped her to set up her shop when we were still together and before Alfred came along. She never stopped going on about it, so it was the course of least resistance, I suppose. I was already having second thoughts about the marriage she insisted upon. I should have walked away—and perhaps I would have done, but she told me she was expecting my child, so naturally I stuck with her. I rented that cottage, thinking she’d no longer want a business, not when she had a child to raise.’ He gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘I was quite wrong about that. She wanted it all and we fought about it.’ He fixed Riley with a probing look. ‘Is it wrong for a father to want his child to have its mother’s full attention?’

  ‘Not wrong at all,’ Riley replied.

  ‘She could fly into terrible rages if she didn’t get her way, and I wasn’t about to become a henpecked husband—nor a dead one neither. I reckoned by then that she had an eye on the rest of my inheritance and weren’t too worried about what she’d have to do to get her grasping hands on it.’

  ‘You feared for your life?’ Salter’s tone was sneering; deliberately so, Riley knew. ‘A little slip of a thing like her and a big strapping fellow like yourself.’

  ‘I remember her tempers,’ Alfred said, jumping to his father’s defence. ‘Some of my earliest memories are of her hurling things at Pa and shouting at the top of her voice. Bernard and me were terrified and we learned to keep out of her way. She wasn’t much of a mother either. We barely saw her; and the girl who was supposed to look after us spent more time making eyes at the butcher’s boy. We more or less raised ourselves.’

  ‘I’m sorry I had to leave my sons in that situation,’ Ralph said, ‘but I knew that she wouldn’t harm them physically, even if she did mostly ignore them. I made sure they were educated and wanted for nothing in material terms. But I swear to God, that woman was vindictive. She told me more than once that if she couldn’t have me, no one else would, and I honestly believed she would have killed me eventually. So I stayed away, seeing the boys when they came out of school. She never knew because she didn’t take enough interest in them to ask after their activities.’ He sighed. ‘And now you tell me she’s finally got her comeuppance. Someone’s done for her what I always thought she’d do to me, God rest her soul.’ He threw back his head and closed his eyes. ‘Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised.’

  ‘What do you mean by comeuppance?’ Salter asked.

  ‘What I say. She ruined my life. Every time I met a woman I liked, she somehow got wind of it and scared her off
. She didn’t manage to kill me but she did make sure that I lived in a state of constant worry, always looking over my shoulder. You seem to think I had nothing to be concerned about, but you’re quite wrong about that, Sergeant. Jessie wouldn’t have confronted me face on. She knew she was no match for me physically, but what’s to say that I wouldn’t have finished up under an omnibus one day? That was more her style.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’ Riley asked.

  Ralph spread his hands. ‘Not for years, which suited me just fine.’

  ‘And you?’ Riley turned to Alfred. ‘How much contact did you have with your mother?’

  ‘None at all. I left what passed for a home as soon as I finished school and was glad to see the back of her. Of course, the moment I left she wanted me back again and kept on at me to return to Clapham. I could do better than the railways, she kept saying, and she would help me. Where was my ambition? I didn’t need Pa, she insisted, which of course accounted for her sudden interest in me.’ He shrugged. ‘She didn’t want me but she didn’t want Pa to benefit from my company either.’

  ‘You live nearby?’

  ‘I have rooms a few streets away.’

  Riley glanced around the large apartment, wondering why he hadn’t moved in with his father. But it didn’t seem pertinent to their investigation, so he didn’t seek clarification.

  ‘Are either of you acquainted with Madame Boise, a milliner with premises in Bond Street?’

  The men exchanged a speaking look.

  ‘I know her,’ Ralph said. ‘We supply her premises with accessories. I don’t call on clients myself anymore. My health doesn’t let me travel much. I work three days a week in the offices in a managerial capacity, but Madame made a point of singling me out one day, not long after she’d set up in Bond Street and I delivered a consignment to her because the man whose duty it was had been taken ill. She seemed to know who I was. Said she’d served her apprenticeship with Jessie. It was obvious that they’d fallen out. Well, I knew that. It was the gossip of the industry. Two ambitious and talented women who could have made a killing if they’d gone into partnership. It didn’t surprise me that they hadn’t. Jessie wasn’t one for letting anyone else have even a bit of a say in things.’

  ‘I see.’

  Riley wondered why Madame had denied knowing Faulkner, if their contact had been innocent. It was the small lies that often caught criminals out. He suspected that she had tried to charm Faulkner into financing her new venture and had failed in that endeavour. Madame struck Riley as the type who didn’t take rejection well and may well have erased the entire incident from her memory.

  But there again, there could be wider implications. Faulkner seemed open and honest and Riley believed his account. His earlier throwaway comments suggested that he was fond of female company. Perhaps he’d been involved romantically with Madame, but the liaison hadn’t lived up to her financial expectations.

  Riley would keep an open mind.

  ‘I remember her being apprenticed to Ma,’ Alfred added. ‘She were pretty, so she was hard to ignore, but she never spoke to Bernard or me. Why do you mention her?’

  ‘Your mother was murdered on Madame’s premises,’ Salter said starkly.

  ‘Good God!’ Ralph shook his head. ‘What on earth was she doing there?’

  ‘Ma was excited when she took the girl on as an apprentice. Said she was the most talented recruit she’d had in years. We boys thought she was quite something, very exotic.’ Alfred chuckled. ‘Bernard and I didn’t mind doing the sweeping up and polishing if we knew young Meg would be there. Well, you know what boys can be like. Ma was in a towering rage for over a week after they argued. Their proposed new venture didn’t go ahead, and Meg struck out on her own.’

  ‘Where were you both early yesterday morning?’ Salter asked.

  ‘I was here,’ Ralph replied without hesitation. ‘A lady stayed the night. I can give you her name if you need clarification. She didn’t leave until ten in the morning.’

  ‘That would be helpful.’

  Salter jotted the woman’s name down in his book. His story would have to be corroborated but Riley didn’t doubt that he’d told the truth. Besides, his asthma was debilitating and it would have taken strength and a degree of nerve to plunge those heavy shears into his children’s mother’s chest. Unless, of course, she was still attempting to frighten off Faulkner’s lady friends. Everyone had their limits—and Faulkner, Riley suspected, would find a willing accomplice in his elder son, who clearly held little regard for his mother.

  ‘And you?’ Salter looked at Albert.

  ‘Driving a train to Brighton. Left Victoria at 7.05 on the dot. Check with my manager. I didn’t have no time for me ma, and I ain’t had anything to do with her either, not for years. But I didn’t have no reason to kill her. I’m sorry she’s dead, of course, but I won’t be shedding any crocodile tears.’

  ‘Someone will need to make the funeral arrangements,’ Riley pointed out.

  ‘Doubt whether she’d want us involved,’ Ralph replied. ‘But knowing Jessie, she will have left specific instructions. Try her solicitors. Makepeace and Sons, Clapham.’

  Salter made another note.

  ‘Mrs Faulkner had been heard to boast that she was on the point of significantly improving her circumstances,’ Riley said. ‘Can either of you think what she might have meant by that?’

  He was unsurprised when both men shook their heads. With no further questions, Riley thanked them for their time and he and Salter left the premises.

  ‘Still ain’t got no one to mourn her,’ Salter remarked as they returned to the pavement.

  ‘Seemingly not.’

  ‘I can’t approve of Faulkner’s behaviour. He got her in trouble and should have stood by her,’ Salter insisted as he hailed a cab to take them to the offices of Bernard Faulkner’s shipping company.

  ‘I knew you’d be offended,’ Riley replied, climbing into the conveyance when the jarvey swerved his horse in the direction of the curb and jerked it to a shuddering halt. ‘But Mr Faulkner’s moral conduct is not our concern. What signifies is that we are getting a better picture of Jessie Faulkner’s character, which seems to have been resentful and spiteful.’

  ‘She had hidden talents, that one.’

  ‘Right. If we are to believe what we were just told, then she used the birth of her first son as a means of trapping Faulkner into the marriage she wanted. She saw an opportunity to advance her ambitions through the use of his inheritance, until Faulkner realised that she would likely bleed him dry. Besides, he isn’t the type to settle for one woman when a dozen will do. The fact that his extreme asthma hasn’t prevented him from entertaining females for the entire night, even now at his relatively advanced age, rather proves my point.’

  ‘Do you think they are both innocent of the murder, sir?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that Ralph is. He wouldn’t put himself at his lady friend’s mercy by asking her to vouch for him if they hadn’t been together all night. He’s become wary of manipulation since his experience with our victim as a younger man, which probably explains why he’s never married. Besides, there’s the small question of his gaining access to Madame’s premises and carrying out the murder there. How and why?’

  ‘Quite so.’ Salter sniffed and was jostled against Riley when their cab hit a rut in the road. ‘Sorry guv’nor,’ he said. ’What about the son? He ain’t married either and he seems dedicated to his pa.’

  ‘Now him I’m not so sure about. How old do you think he is, Jack?’

  ‘Mid-twenties, I’d say. I’d put Faulkner at a well-preserved fifty.’

  ‘Which means that Madame Boise would have been a pretty young apprentice when Alfred was a young lad, just like he said. He admitted that he and his brother both had an eye for her but I can’t imagine Madame having any time for Alfred, then or now. But still, let’s keep an open mind.’

  The cab dropped them at Johnson and Sons, Importers, where they a
sked to speak with Bernard Faulkner. After a short delay, a man who looked the image of his brother and father, albeit smarter and more alert, greeted them in the reception area.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘How may I assist Scotland Yard?’

  Riley studied him as Salter introduced them both. He was handsome, self-assured and a little on the arrogant side. The impression he gave was of a man whose ambition matched his mother’s, and one who intended to make something of himself.

  ‘Is there somewhere we can speak in private?’ Riley asked.

  ‘Of course. Come this way please.’

  He led them to a dingy room, little more than a store cupboard, in the bowels of the building. The room was hot and uncomfortable, and Riley wondered if he had taken them there in a deliberate ploy to keep the interview short.

  ‘I regret to advise you,’ he said without preamble, ‘that your mother is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Bernard scratched his head as his mouth fell open. ‘What? How? Was there an accident?’

  ‘It weren’t no accident,’ Salter told him. ‘She was murdered.’

  ‘Murdered? Good lord.’ He sank down onto a packing case and shook his head repeatedly. ‘Who on earth would…’

  ‘When did you last see her?’ Riley asked, not bothering to express condolences that would probably not be appreciated.

  ‘Not sure. Let me see.’ He threw back his head. ‘Probably a month, six weeks ago. Something like that.’

  Riley and Salter exchanged a glance. ‘You kept in touch with her?’ Riley asked.

  ‘Of course I did, Chief Inspector.’ He blinked, looking surprised by the question. ‘She was my mother.’ He paused. ‘Ah, you’ve been speaking with my father or brother, I assume. Perhaps both of them. They will have told you that Ma was the spawn of the devil, I have no doubt. Well, truth be told, she was a bit of a tartar. But I admired her in a way. She had drive and ambition, and she didn’t see why motherhood should prevent her from pursuing those ambitions. And she had a point. I mean, she didn’t produce two sons without our father’s help. He tells me it was deliberate because she sensed she was losing him. If that’s the case and Father no longer cared for her, he should have stayed away from her bed.’