“Why would they have kept it for six months?”
“Why would she?”
Robin considered the matter. She regularly kept receipts, but these were matters of expenses while doing surveillance, to be presented to the accountant.
“Yeah, maybe it is odd she still had it,” she conceded.
“But Lawson never managed to get anything further out of her. I don’t think he genuinely suspected her, mind you. I get the impression he just didn’t like her. He pressed her very hard on the anonymous notes she claimed to have seen, the ones mentioning hellfire. I don’t think he believed in them.”
“I thought the other receptionist confirmed she’d seen one?”
“She did. Nothing to say they weren’t in cahoots, though. No trace of the notes was ever found.”
“But that’d be a serious lie,” said Robin. “With the fake dental appointment, I can see why she fibbed and why she’d have been frightened to admit it afterward. Lying about anonymous notes in the context of a missing person, though…”
“Ah, but don’t forget, Irene was already telling the story of the anonymous notes before Margot went missing. It’s more of the same, isn’t it? The two receptionists could’ve invented these threatening notes for the pleasure of starting a malicious rumor, then found it impossible to back away from the lie after Margot disappeared.
“Anyway,” said Strike, flicking over a couple of pages, “so much for Irene. Now for her best buddy, the practice nurse.
“Janice’s original statement was that she drove around all afternoon, making house calls. The last visit, which was to an old lady with multiple health issues, kept her longer than she expected. She left there around six and hurried straight to a call box to ring Irene at home, to see whether they were still on for the cinema that evening. Irene said she didn’t feel up to it, but Janice had already got herself a babysitter, and was desperate to see the movie—James Caan, The Gambler—so she went anyway. Watched the movie alone, then went back to the neighbor’s, picked up her son and went home.
“Talbot didn’t bother to check any of this, but a zealous junior officer did, on his own initiative, and it all checked out. All the patients confirmed that Janice had been at their houses at the right times. The babysitter confirmed that Janice returned to pick up her son when expected. Janice also produced a half-torn ticket for the movie out of the bottom of her handbag. Given that this was less than a week after Margot disappeared, it doesn’t seem particularly fishy, her still having it. On the other hand, a torn ticket is no more proof that she sat through the movie than the receipt is proof Irene went shopping.”
He threw his cigarette end out of the window.
“Where did Janice’s last patient of the day live?” asked Robin, and Strike knew that her mind was running on distances and timings.
“Gopsall Street, which is about a ten-minute drive from the practice. It would’ve been just possible for a woman in a car to have intercepted Margot on the way to the Three Kings, assuming Margot was walking very slowly, or was delayed somewhere along the route, or left the practice later than Gloria said she did. But it would’ve required luck, because as we know, some of the path Margot would’ve taken was pedestrianized.”
“And I can’t really see why you’d make arrangements with a friend to go to the cinema if you were planning to abduct someone,” said Robin.
“Nor can I,” said Strike. “But I’m not finished. When Lawson takes over the case he finds out that Janice lied to Talbot as well.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Turned out she didn’t actually have a car. Six weeks before Margot disappeared, Janice’s ancient Morris Minor gave up the ghost and she sold it for scrap. From that time onwards, she was making all her house calls by public transport and on foot. She hadn’t wanted to tell anyone at the practice that she was carless, in case they told her she couldn’t do her job. Her husband had walked out, leaving her with a kid. She was saving up to get a new car, but she knew it was going to take a while, so she pretended the Morris Minor was in the garage, or that it was easier to get the bus, if anyone asked.”
“But if that’s true—”
“It is. Lawson checked it all out, questioned the scrap yard and everything.”
“—then that surely puts her completely out of the frame for an abduction.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Strike. “She could’ve got a cab, of course, but the cabbie would’ve had to be in on the abduction, too. No, the interesting thing about Janice is that in spite of believing she was entirely innocent, Talbot interviewed her a total of seven times, more than any other witness or suspect.”
“Seven times?”
“Yep. He had a kind of excuse at first. She was a neighbor of Steve Douthwaite’s, Margot’s acutely stressed patient. Interviews two and three were all about Douthwaite, who Janice knew to say hello to. Douthwaite was Talbot’s preferred candidate for the Essex Butcher, so you can follow his thought processes—you would question neighbors if you thought someone might be butchering women at home. But Janice wasn’t able to tell Talbot anything about Douthwaite beyond what we already know, and Talbot still kept going back to her. After the third interview, he stopped asking her about Douthwaite and things got very strange indeed. Among other things, Talbot asked whether she’d ever been hypnotized, whether she’d be prepared to try it, asked her all about her dreams and urged her to keep a diary of them so he could read it, and also to make him a list of her most recent sexual partners.”
“He did what?”
“There’s a copy of a letter from the Commissioner in the file,” said Strike drily, “apologizing to Janice for Talbot’s behavior. All in all, you can see why they wanted him off the force as fast as possible.”
“Did his son tell you any of that?”
Strike remembered Gregory’s earnest, mild face, his assertion that Bill had been a good father and his embarrassment as the conversation turned to pentagrams.
“I doubt he knew about it. Janice doesn’t seem to have made a fuss.”
“Well,” said Robin, slowly. “She was a nurse. Maybe she could tell he was ill?”
She considered the matter for a few moments, then said,
“It’d be frightening, though, wouldn’t it? Having the investigating officer coming back to your house every five minutes, asking you to keep a dream diary?”
“It’d put the wind up most people. I’m assuming the explanation is the obvious one—but we should ask her about it.”
Strike glanced into the back and saw, as he’d hoped, a bag of food.
“Well, it is your birthday,” said Robin, her eyes still on the road.
“Fancy a biscuit?”
“Bit early for me. You carry on.”
As he leaned back to fetch the bag, Strike noticed that Robin smelled again of her old perfume.
20
And if that any ill she heard of any,
She would it eeke, and make much worse by telling,
And take great ioy to publish it to many,
That euery matter worse was for her melling.
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
Irene Hickson’s house lay in a short, curving Georgian terrace of yellow brick, with arched windows and fanlights over each black front door. It reminded Robin of the street where she’d spent the last few months of her married life, in a rented house that had been built for a sea merchant. Here, too, were traces of London’s trading past. The lettering over an arched window read Royal Circus Tea Warehouse.
“Mr. Hickson must’ve made good money,” said Strike, looking up at the beautifully proportioned frontage as he and Robin crossed the street. “This is a long way from Corporation Row.”
Robin rang the doorbell. They heard a shout of “Don’t worry, I’ll get it!” and a few seconds later, a short, silver-haired woman opened the door to them. Dressed in a navy sweater, and trousers of the kind that Robin’s mother would have called “slacks,” she had a r
ound pink and white face. Blue eyes peeked out from beneath a blunt fringe that Robin suspected she might have cut herself.
“Mrs. Hickson?” asked Robin.
“Janice Beattie,” said the older woman. “You’re Robin, are you? An’ you’re—’
The retired nurse’s eyes swept down over Strike’s legs in what looked like professional appraisal.
“—Corm’ran, is that ’ow you say it?” she asked, looking back up into his face.
“That’s right,” said Strike. “Very good of you to see us, Mrs. Beattie.”
“Oh, no trouble at all,” she said, backing away to let them in. “Irene’ll be wiv us in a mo.”
The naturally upturned corners of the nurse’s mouth and the dimples in her full cheeks gave her a cheerful look even when she wasn’t smiling. She led them through a hall that Strike found oppressively over-decorated. Everything was dusky pink: the flowered wallpaper, the thick carpet, the dish of pot-pourri that sat on the telephone table. The distant sound of a flush told them exactly where Irene was.
The sitting room was decorated in olive green, and everything that could be swagged, flounced, fringed or padded had been. Family photographs in silver frames were crowded on side tables, the largest of which showed a heavily tanned forty-something blonde who was cheek to cheek over fruit-and-umbrella-laden cocktails with a florid gentlemen who Robin assumed was the late Mr. Hickson. He looked quite a lot older than his wife. A large collection of porcelain figurines stood upon purpose-built mahogany shelves against the shiny olive-green wallpaper. All represented young women. Some wore crinolines, others twirled parasols, still others sniffed flowers or cradled lambs in their arms.
“She collects ’em,” said Janice, smiling as she saw where Robin was looking. “Lovely, aren’t they?”
“Oh yes,” lied Robin.
Janice didn’t seem to feel she had the right to invite them to sit down without Irene present, so the three of them remained standing beside the figurines.
“Have you come far?” she asked them politely, but before they could answer, a voice that commanded attention said,
“Hello! Welcome!”
Like her sitting room, Irene Hickson presented a first impression of over-embellished, over-padded opulence. Just as blonde as she’d been at twenty-five, she was now much heavier, with an enormous bosom. She’d outlined her hooded eyes in black, penciled her sparse brows into a high, Pierrot-ish arch and painted her thin lips in scarlet. In a mustard-colored twinset, black trousers, patent heels and a large quantity of gold jewelry, which included clip-on earrings so heavy that they were stretching her already long lobes, she advanced on them in a potent cloud of amber perfume and hairspray.
“How d’you do?” she said, beaming at Strike as she offered her hand, bracelets jangling. “Has Jan told you? What happened this morning? So strange, with you coming today; so strange, but I’ve lost count of the number of times things like that happen to me.” She paused, then said dramatically, “My Margot shattered. My Margot Fonteyn, on the top shelf,” she said, pointing to a gap in the china figurines. “Fell apart into a million pieces when I ran the feather duster over her!”
She paused, waiting for astonishment.
“That is odd,” said Robin, because it was clear Strike wasn’t going to say anything.
“Isn’t it?” said Irene. “Tea? Coffee? Whatever you want.”
“I’ll do it, dear,” said Janice.
“Thank you, my love. Maybe make both?” said Irene. She waved Strike and Robin graciously toward armchairs. “Please, sit down.”
The armchairs placed Strike and Robin within view of a window framed in tasseled curtains, through which they could see a garden with intricate paving and raised beds. It had an Elizabethan air, with low box hedges and a wrought iron sundial.
“Oh, the garden was all my Eddie,” said Irene, following their gaze. “He loved his garden, bless his heart. Loved this house. It’s why I’m still here, although it’s too big for me now, really… Excuse me. I haven’t been well,” she added in a loud whisper, making quite a business of lowering herself onto the sofa and placing cushions carefully around herself. “Jan’s been a saint.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Strike. “That you’ve been unwell, I mean, not that your friend’s a saint.”
Irene gave a delighted peal of laughter and Robin suspected that if Strike had been sitting slightly nearer, Irene might have playfully cuffed him. With an air of giving Strike privileged information, she half-mouthed:
“Irritable bowel syndrome. It flares up. The pain is sometimes —well. The funny thing is, I was fine all the time I was away—I’ve been staying with my eldest daughter, they’re in Hampshire, that’s why I didn’t get your letter straight away—but the moment I got home, I called Jan, I said, you’ll have to come, I’m in that much pain—and my GP’s no use,” she added, with a little moue of disgust. “Woman. All my own fault, according to her! I should be cutting out everything that makes life worth living—I was telling them, Jan,” she said, as her friend backed into the room with a laden tea tray, “that you’re a saint.”
“Oh, carry on. Everyone likes a good review,” said Janice cheerfully. Strike was halfway out of his chair to help her with the tray, on which stood both teapot and cafetière, but like Mrs. Gupta she refused help, depositing it on a padded ottoman. An assortment of chocolate biscuits, some foil-wrapped, lay on a doily; the sugar bowl had tongs and the flowered fine bone china suggested “for best.” Janice joined her friend on the sofa and poured out the hot drinks, serving Irene first.
“Help yourself to biscuits,” Irene told her visitors, and then, eyeing Strike hungrily, “So—the famous Cameron Strike! I nearly had a heart attack when I saw your name at the bottom of the letter. And you’re going to try and crack Creed, are you? Will he talk to you, do you think? Will they let you go and see him?”
“We’re not that far along yet,” said Strike with a smile, as he took out his notebook and uncapped his pen. “We’ve got a few questions, mainly background, that you two might be able—”
“Oh, anything we can do to help,” said Irene eagerly. “Anything.”
“We’ve read both your police statements,” said Strike, “so unless—”
“Oh dear,” interrupted Irene, pulling a mock-fearful expression. “You know all about me being a naughty girl, then? About the dentist and that, do you? There’ll be young girls out there doing it, right now, fibbing to get a few hours off, but just my luck I picked the day Margot—sorry, I don’t mean that,” Irene said, catching herself. “I don’t. This is how I get myself in trouble,” she said, with a little laugh. “Steady, girl, Eddie would’ve said, wouldn’t he Jan?” she said, tapping her friend on the arm. “Wouldn’t he have said, steady, girl?”
“He would,” said Janice, smiling and nodding.
“I was going to say,” Strike continued, “that unless either of you have got anything to add—”
“Oh, don’t think we haven’t thought about it,” interrupted Irene again. “If we’d remembered anything else we’d have been straight down the police station, wouldn’t we, Jan?”
“—I’d like to clarify a few points.
“Mrs. Beattie,” said Strike, looking at Janice, who was absentmindedly stroking the underside of her wedding ring, which was the only piece of jewelry she wore, “one thing that struck me when I read the police notes was how many times Inspector Talbot—”
“Oh, you and me both, Cameron,” Irene interrupted eagerly, before Janice could open her mouth. “You and me both! I know exactly what you’re going to ask —why did he keep pestering Jan? I told her at the time—didn’t I, Jan?—I said, this isn’t right, you should report it, but you didn’t, did you? I mean, I know he was having a breakdown, blah blah blah —you’ll know all about that,” she said, with a nod toward Strike, that simultaneously conveyed a compliment and an eagerness to fill him in should he require it, “but ill men are still men, aren’t they?”
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“Mrs. Beattie,” repeated Strike, slightly louder, “why do you think Talbot kept interviewing you?”
Irene took the broad hint and allowed Janice to answer, but her self-restraint lasted only until Janice hit her stride, at which point she set up a murmured counterpoint, echoing Janice’s words, adding agreement and emphasis, and giving the general impression that she feared that if she did not make a noise every few seconds, Strike might forget she was there.
“I dunno, in all honesty,” said Janice, still fiddling with her wedding ring. “The first few times ’e saw me it was straightforward questions—”
“At first it was, yeah,” murmured Irene, nodding along.
“—about what I done that day, you know, what I could tell ’im about people coming to see Margot, because I knew a lot of the patients—”
“We got to know them all, working at the practice,” said Irene, nodding.
“—but then, it was like ’e thought I ’ad… well, special powers. I know that sounds bonkers, but I don’t fink—”
“Oho, well, I do,” said Irene, her eyes on Strike.
“—no, I honestly don’t fink ’e was—you know—” Janice seemed embarrassed even to say it, “keen on me. ’E did ask inappropriate things, but I could tell ’e wasn’t right, you know—in the ’ead. It was an ’orrible position to be in, honestly,” Janice said, switching her gaze to Robin. “I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone. ’E was police! I just ’ad to keep sitting there while ’e asked me about me dreams. And after the first few interviews that’s all he wanted to talk about, me past boyfriends and stuff, nothing about Margot or the patients—”
“He was interested in one patient, though, wasn’t—?” began Robin.
“Duckworth!” piped up Irene excitedly.
“Douthwaite,” said Strike.
“Douthwaite, yes, that’s who I meant,” muttered Irene, and to cover a slight embarrassment she helped herself to a biscuit, which meant that for a few moments, at least, Janice was able to talk uninterrupted.
“Yeah, ’e did ask me about Steve,” said Janice, nodding, “’cause ’e lived in my block of flats, down Percival Street.”
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