The Shortest Journey

by Hazel Holt

  She looked at me maliciously and I said rather stiffly, ‘If Mrs Rossiter told my mother something in confidence then she wouldn’t have told anyone, not even me.’

  Mrs Dudley looked annoyed but decided that she would rather continue her gossip than take offence at my remark.

  ‘Oh, yes, it was quite a scandal, I believe. The other boy was badly hurt. The headmaster had a dreadful job to persuade the parents not to take legal action. No, Alan always was a difficult boy, and what has he made of his life? Living on the other side of the world with all those poor Africans – I saw a documentary about them on television the other day and all I can say is I’m glad that neither of my children are out there! A dreadful place, nowadays. Of course when my husband’s uncle was a District Commissioner in Tanganyika things were very different, but all Alan seems to do is fiddle about with wells and poor farmers.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s very valuable work,’ I said.

  ‘But hardly a career, not like Thelma. Now there’s a girl who’s really got on!’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you might say that.’

  ‘No question about it. I know she had all that Rossiter money behind her, and I suppose she’ll have a great deal more if her mother is dead, but she has turned out to be a wonderful businesswoman. She’s really left you and Rosemary a long way behind!’

  She laughed unkindly and looked at me sharply, to see if I would rise to her remark, but I simply said, ‘Yes, she is certainly successful in business.’

  I stayed a little longer and then thankfully escaped for a cup of tea with Mrs Jankiewicz. I listened while she told me once again about the Old Days on her grandmother’s estate in eastern Poland, which was familiar and comforting, and made me feel as though I was listening to a short story by Chekhov.

  The weather improved in the next few days, and I was able to get out into the garden at last to do a few jobs. I was tying up one of the climbing roses which had blown down in the wind when a loud barking made me realise that Don had arrived to clean the windows. He stooped to pat the dogs before he unloaded his ladders, slightly hampered by Tris and Tessa who ran round him excitedly in circles.

  ‘Hello, Don,’ I said, ‘I didn’t expect you today.’

  ‘No, well, you see, Mrs Malory, I’ve got these contract jobs now with some of the hotels and so on, so I’m having to fit my regulars in where I can. I hope it’s not inconvenient?’

  ‘No, today’s fine, carry on. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say no.’

  Taking this as a form of assent I went in to put the kettle on.

  As I was taking off my gardening gloves I was aware of a loud bellowing from my bedroom and resignedly went up the stairs. Foss was perched on the back of an armchair by the window, the ridge of fur on his back standing up and his tail puffed out like a bottle-brush. He was informing me at the top of his voice that there was someone outside the window looking in at him. I scooped him up and told him not to be silly.

  Don pushed the window open and said cheerfully, ‘I see the old moggie still doesn’t like me doing the windows, then.’

  I apologised for my cat’s impolite behaviour and Foss, rigid with disapproval, allowed me to take him away.

  Don likes a good gossip and I have long since resigned myself to the fact that this is the price you have to pay if you want to get things done around the house, so I sat down at the kitchen table, poured out two mugs of tea, pushed a plate of bourbon creams towards him and said, ‘Well, Don, and how is the world treating you?’

  ‘Can’t complain, Mrs Malory. Now I’ve got these cleaning contracts – course, with the hotels it’s more the summer; there won’t be so much in the winter when the visitors have gone. But West Lodge should keep me busy all year round.’

  ‘Oh, you’re doing the windows there?’

  He stirred a spoonful of sugar into his mug. ‘Terrible thing about the old lady!’

  ‘The old lady?’

  ‘That Mrs Rossiter, disappearing like that. Proper mystery, that was.’

  ‘Yes, it’s been very worrying for her family and all her friends.’

  ‘A very nice lady, always liked a chat. I thought she was lonely in that place.’

  ‘Well, of course, her family don’t live in Taviscombe so they can’t get to see her very often.’

  ‘She saw her son, though, she told me. All the way from Africa he was coming. She was that pleased!’

  I sipped my tea, which was too hot to drink, and said casually, ‘When did he come? Did she say?’

  ‘Couldn’t rightly tell. She told me about it the last time I was there before she went. Let me see, she must have gone off about a week after that, so I suppose he must have come some time that week. I mean, if he’d come and found she’d gone off like that he’d have made a fuss, wouldn’t he? And I didn’t hear nothing about anything like that when I was there the next time. Very full of it, they was, and having the police there and everything. Didn’t like that, Mrs Wilmot didn’t. Well, she wouldn’t, would she?’

  ‘Did Mrs Rossiter say if her son was visiting her at West Lodge, or was she meeting him somewhere else?’

  ‘I don’t think she – no, hold on, she said she was going to see him in Taunton. Said it would be more convenient for him. Though if he’d come all the way from Africa, it seems to me he could have just as well come on out to Taviscombe and not made his poor old mother go into Taunton to meet him!’

  ‘Oh’ I think she liked little outings. She used to take a taxi.’

  We had a little further conversation about the iniquitous price of taxis and how, if a bloke could get a decent car, instead of an old banger, he could probably make a fortune, and then Don packed up his ladders, leaving me with nice clean windows and another piece to be fitted somewhere in the jigsaw.

  On a sudden impulse I picked some roses from the garden and went to see Mrs Jankiewicz at West Lodge.

  Mrs Jankiewicz, too, was sitting by the window, but erect and alert. Her room faced Jubilee Gardens but, although there was the usual brilliant floral display, I knew it was only an indistinct mass of colour to her. It seemed to me that she sat by the window not so much to see what was going on in the world outside as to be seen, so that passers-by would know that she was there and still keeping an eye on things.

  While I put the roses in a vase (deep ruby red glass in a heavy, ornately wrought pewter holder) she gave me the latest news of Sophie.

  ‘She works too hard, that girl. Taddeus should not allow it.’

  ‘I think she enjoys her work,’ I said.

  ‘Is not the point. To be a doctor’s wife is hard enough – I know it – but to be a doctor’s wife and also a doctor with no wife is terrible.’

  We had had this conversation many times before as well.

  ‘How’s Kasha?’

  Mrs Jankiewicz’s face softened. Her granddaughter was the one person in the world who could do no wrong.

  ‘She sings, at school in the choir. She has voice like an angel. Zofia has sent me a tape. She sends me tapes now instead of the letters, now that my eyes are not so good.’

  ‘What a marvellous idea. And you must send tapes to her. I’ll help you make one, shall I? Sophie would love that. Let’s see if your cassette player has a built-in microphone.’

  ‘I do not understand. I can press the button to play, Zofia showed me how...’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s fine,’ I said, looking at the cassette player that Sophie had bought for her mother before she went away. ‘Next time I come I’ll bring a spare tape and you can record a message for them all. It’s a shame.’ I went on, ‘that Mrs Rossiter never had any tapes from Alan. She would have liked that.’

  A sound rather like a snort came from Mrs Jankiewicz, but she said nothing.

  ‘I gather he’s been in England, though,’ I said, putting the cassette player on a shelf and turning to look at her. ‘And she went into Taunton to see him.’

  Still there was silence.

  ‘Di
d she?’ I persisted.

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Jankiewicz said finally. ‘Yes, she did see him. But it would be better if she had not.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Is no good, that one. Not a good son. Always upsets his mother.’

  ‘What happened.’

  She turned her head and looked again out of the window.

  ‘She was crying, when she came back.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ I said.

  She moved in her chair and faced me again.

  ‘You are a mother, Sheila, you know how nothing can hurt you like a child, when they do not care...’

  ‘Alan always was a horrible person,’ I said. ‘What happened this time?’

  ‘She went into Taunton to see him. He had a woman with him and they want money for some journey they would make. I do not understand what it was, but they want a great deal of money. First Alan was so sweet – you know how people are when they want something – and this woman so charming. They all have lunch at the Castle Hotel, so expensive it is there, and they tell her all about this journey, whatever it is, and she was so interested and she say she would like to help. Then Alan tell her how much it is and she is worried – so much money. Not that she cannot afford it, but she has – what do you say? – trustees and she is, anyway, nervous at so much. So she says she will ask these trustees and let Alan know what they say. And then he is furious – you know how he can be? He makes a scene and the people in the dining room were all looking at them. You know how Mrs Rossiter hates such things. The woman, she tries to calm Alan and eventually he apologises to his mother and she comes back here. But she is so upset. She cries when she tells me. She had looked forward so much to see him, but all he wants from her is the money. Is no love, no affection. She say, when she refuse him the money straight away, he look at her as if he hates her!’

  ‘How terrible,’ I said. ‘And how unfair that she, who is so loving, should be treated like that. Did she speak to her trustees, I wonder? When did all this happen?’

  ‘About a week before...’

  ‘Before she went away. I wonder if she saw Alan again. Do you know?’

  ‘She does not say.’

  ‘I wonder if it was Alan she went to see that day she went off?’

  There was a tap at the door and Maureen came in.

  ‘Are you going into the dining room for your lunch, then, or shall I bring it here?’

  Mrs Jankiewicz rose to her feet with some difficulty.

  ‘I go to the dining room, I need to see Mrs Whipple. Her daughter, she has sold the house for her and I do not think that Mrs Whipple has had all the money from it that she should. You must go now, Sheila, but you will come and see me again soon. You are a good girl and they are beautiful roses.’

  She took Maureen’s arm and they began their stately progress along the corridor to the dining room.

  I walked slowly out of West Lodge into the brilliant sunshine and took a deep breath of air, as I always did when I got out of there, to reassure myself that I was out in the real world again, that I was still (relatively) young and healthy and free to live my life as I wanted. But, as I walked through the gardens to where I had left my car, it occurred to me that not only had Mrs Jankiewicz not answered my question, but that she obviously had had no intention of doing so.

  Chapter Ten

  We had a wonderful burst of summer weather, several weeks when the sun shone every day and the idea of rain seemed unthinkable. I’m lucky because my garden never really dries out and, when he’s home, Michael can usually be coerced into lugging watering cans about if there’s a hosepipe ban. We were sitting in the garden drinking iced coffee after lunch – me idly glancing through the Telegraph and Michael leafing rather desperately through his law notes as term approached and, with it, exams.

  Once upon a time I used to look first at the Engagements, then at the Weddings and Births. Now, alas, I turn straight to the Obituaries.

  ‘Oh dear!’ I exclaimed. Michael looked up. ‘Mrs Rossiter’s sister Maud has died. “Peacefully, at home,” it says. Poor Marion, I must write to her.’

  ‘What will happen about the Trust now, I wonder?’ Michael said. ‘It’ll be a marvellous bonanza for her solicitors – it could run for years!’

  ‘Oh, darling, you make it sound like Bleak House – Jarndyce and Jarndyce!’

  ‘Well, I won’t say that the law hasn’t changed at all since Dickens’s day...’

  ‘Thelma thinks her clever young man might be able to break the Trust,’ I said.

  ‘It would take a helluva time and cost a fortune.’

  ‘Well, there seem to be several fortunes up for grabs. I suppose Thelma will swing into action now. Oh dear,’ I sighed. ‘I do wish I knew what has happened to poor little Mrs Rossiter. It seems incredible that she should have just vanished off the face of the earth.’

  ‘There are several people who might be better off. Or, at least, they would be better off if she were proved to be dead ... If someone has bumped her off, then it’s strange they haven’t produced the body so’s they can get at the money.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘I suppose they might want to establish an alibi or something. Alan, for instance; he might want to get back abroad. I mean, he wasn’t to know that Mrs Rossiter told Mrs Jankiewicz that she’d met him. He might have reckoned that no one would ever know that he was in England at all.’

  ‘Mm ... He’d have to be pretty stupid to take that sort of a chance. Do you really think he’s the one?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t believe that anyone could murder their own mother.’

  ‘Greek literature is full of matricide and patricide and, anyway, look at the Old Testament!’

  ‘Yes, I know, but not in life. Certainly not someone we actually know.’

  ‘Actually, I’d back Horrible Thelma as a murderer any day.’

  ‘Oh, darling, really!’

  ‘Think about it.’ Michael put down the large binder that contained his notes and leaned forward. ‘From what you’ve told me, she’s mad keen to get a large sum of money to expand that business of hers and – all right – she’d get a vast amount if she waited until her aunt and her mother died, but she might need a substantial sum now and she would inherit a fair bit from her mother, in any case.’

  A sudden thought struck me.

  ‘She might need it in a hurry. I do believe she’s going to ditch Gordon and go off with this young man, Simon. I told you about him. Gordon’s a bit dreary, but he’s no fool in business. She’d have to buy him out of the firm!’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  ‘But – Thelma – no, honestly…’

  But the thought squirrelled deeper and deeper in my mind. If Alan’s infatuation with this American female gave him a motive for his mother’s death, then what about Thelma and Simon? She was a realist and would have understood (as Alan in his turn had done) that her most powerful attraction for Simon was financial. The not-quite-suitable mini skirts and the extra gloss she had imparted to her appearance were all very well, but what Thelma needed to catch (and, more important, to hold) Simon was a share in a very profitable business. And to buy Gordon out she needed a great deal – the sort of sum she could only hope to get after her mother’s death.

  ‘But what about the time she came here just after Mrs Rossiter went missing?’ I asked, trying hard to keep hold of reality. ‘Asking if I knew anything. She was very distressed.’

  ‘Was she really, though? About poor Mrs R.?’

  I thought of Thelma’s calculating explanation of the Trust and how disgusted I had felt. I remembered her coldness and lack of affection for her mother all the years I had known her.

  ‘But why did she call, then?’

  ‘To see if you knew anything, of course. Presumably Mrs R. arranged to meet her in Taunton. Thelma probably told her not to mention it to anyone for some reason...’

  ‘What reason?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps Thelma told her mother that she was
supposed to be somewhere else, at some boring conference she wanted to get out of...’

  ‘It sounds a bit far-fetched.’

  ‘Well, whatever. Mrs R. meets Thelma...’

  ‘And Simon; Ed Cooper saw a man and a woman. And that’s what she would have told her mother. Mrs Rossiter was such a romantic, she would have been thrilled that Thelma had met the love of her life at last and would have been dying to see him! But she’d understand that it had to be kept a secret, at least for the moment. Thelma would be taking a tremendous risk, but then she’s always been one for taking risks.’

  ‘But Mrs R. was very fond of you and she just might have let something slip. Thelma had to find out if she’d said anything to you.’

  ‘And all that flouncing about at West Lodge was just acting?’

  ‘Why not? Anyway’ – Michael opened his folder of law notes again and laid them out before him on the garden table – ‘you know what they say about murder. Who stands to gain? On that count Thelma is the number one suspect.’

  ‘Alan inherits as well. He has a motive, too.’

  ‘Has he?’

  ‘Well, you know he has. Thelma says...’ I stopped.

  ‘Exactly. You’ve only got Thelma’s word about all that.’

  ‘But he’s been here in England. Don told me that Mrs Rossiter said she was going to meet him in Taunton and Mrs Jankiewicz said that she was upset when she came back. And she told me about the American woman, too.’

  ‘Never mind. It just means that you’ve got two suspects now instead of one.’

  ‘I don’t really want any suspects. The whole thing is too horrible to contemplate. Would you like some more iced coffee?’

  ‘Oh, yes, please. And Ma’ – Michael’s voice took on a coaxing note that I knew well – ‘if you could spare the odd half-hour to hear my notes. I’ve read them over and over and they simply won’t stick.’

  I fetched some more coffee and picked up the folder resignedly. A piece of paper with verses scribbled on it caught my eye.