by Joan Smith
She paused, unsure whether any of this was relevant, and took silence for assent. “I was sort of holding Bridget, she was crying as well as being sick, and I just dragged her into the house. Audrey was with me, Audrey Summers, and we were halfway up the stairs when someone came and said could she look at the body—she’s a GP, not that she could do much . . . I got Bridget onto the bed and went to the bathroom for a towel . . . I was alone with her for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, then Sam came upstairs and said Audrey had gone to get her—that thing for measuring blood-pressure—from her car. He stayed with Bridget and I came down to make some tea.”
“So you can’t really be more specific about who did what in the garden from the moment the dog ran out of the barn?”
“No. Sorry. It was very confused.”
“Well.” The Inspector sighed and put down her pen. “It’s not as if there’s a shortage of witnesses, quite the opposite.” She pulled back the cuff of her silky gray shirt and examined her watch.
Loretta said hopefully: “Is that all?”
“For now. Someone’11 be round in the next day or two to take a proper statement. Oh—I haven’t got your phone number.”
Loretta gave it, adding: “I’m out quite a lot, I use the English-faculty library and the Bodleian, but there’s an answering machine.” She stood up, as did the Inspector.
“I’ll look out for you next time I come past your garden. Go on the canal much, do you?”
“Not this year. I used to have a boat but the wood was rotten and it sort of fell apart.” Loretta edged towards the door, not wanting to get involved in more small talk. “Shall I—who do you want to see next?”
“Dudley’s got a list—the Incredible Hulk who brought you in.” The Inspector smiled, inviting Loretta to share in this small joke at the expense of a junior officer, but she was already thinking about something else.
’There is one thing,” she added, fiddling with the door handle. “I assume it’s all right for Bridget to stay with me tonight? I’ve talked to Sam and we both thought it was a good idea to get her away from . . . from all this.” She gestured vaguely through the window, where a WPC was conferring in a low voice with someone out of vision. “I know you’ve got a job to do but she’s in a state of collapse . . . I gather Dr. Summers has talked to—to someone about interviewing her tomorrow.”
The Inspector pursed her lips. “So I’ve been told. I’ll make a note we can get Dr. Bennett on your number. We don’t want anyone thinking she’s disappeared, do we?” She came round the table, her high heels clicking on the stone floor, and the expression of official disapproval cleared from her face. “You’re very wise, actually,” she said in her previous confidential tone, “because the press are going to love this one.”
“The press? Oh, God” This was an aspect of the affair that had not occurred to Loretta, but she realized that a police press officer was probably briefing journalists at this very moment. Her ex-husband, John Tracey, had been a reporter on a south London newspaper in the early days of their marriage, and their evenings were frequently wrecked by his routine calls to the local police, ambulance station and fire brigade. “Anything for us?” he used to ask, assuming a chummy, all-boys-together tone which made Loretta cringe. Five minutes later he would be on the trail of a story, smiling apologetically as he pulled on his raincoat, and she would be lucky to see him again before she went to bed.
“A real country-house murder,” the Inspector was saying, leaning back against the table and crossing her slim ankles. “Not to mention the university angle. They all watch Inspector Morse these days.”
“Do you really have to tell them?” Loretta let go of the door handle and came back into the room.
The Inspector pulled a smart leather bag towards her and removed a packet of Silk Cut. “Do you mind?”
Loretta was about to say she did, then realized that the smoke would at least camouflage the pungent whiff of rotting flesh which wafted through the open window whenever the breeze was in the right direction. Perhaps that was why there had been a feverish handing round of cigarettes in the kitchen when she came downstairs just before the first police car arrived.
“I don’t like it either”—the woman lit up and paused to inhale—“but we need their help, especially in a case like this where identification—well, I’m not giving away any secrets if I say identification’s our first problem. We give them the story, someone might be on the phone tomorrow morning saying my sister Susan walked out of the house last month after a row with Dad and nobody’s seen her since. Anyway, we couldn’t keep it quiet if we wanted to. There were over forty people in that garden when she was found, not counting kids.”
“You’re not suggesting—” Loretta broke off, remembering that Stephen Kaplan occasionally wrote leader-page pieces for the Daily Mail; he had ambitions, according to unkind north Oxford gossip, to become a media don like Norman Stone. She had no idea whether his relationship with the paper extended to feeding it sensational stories like this one, but it was no use protesting that Bridget and Sam’s guests would never, ever, stoop to such a thing.
“We only give them the basics, of course.” The Inspector was roving round the room in search of an ashtray, a column of ash balanced precariously on the end of her cigarette. “Your friend’s quite safe, if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re not empowered to tell them where she’s staying.” She gave up her search, picked up the empty plastic beaker from the end of the table and tapped the ash into it.
“I suppose that’s something,” Loretta said, sounding ungracious even to herself. “Well, if that’s all . . .”
The Inspector returned to her seat and flashed Loretta a friendly smile. “As I said, someone’11 be round later in the week for a formal statement. Thanks for your help.”
Loretta opened the door to the hall and found her path blocked by a wide uniformed back. “Excuse me.” She was close enough to smell the stale sweat which had formed dark-blue half-circles under his arms, but he didn’t seem to have heard her. She raised her voice: “Excuse me—”
He turned, revealing piggy eyes and a raw-steak complexion.
“Inspector—the Inspector’s finished with me.”
He picked up a clipboard from the hall table, ran his finger down a list and strode to the open front door without saying a word. “Lawson!”
“No,” she protested from behind. “That’s me. I’m Loretta Lawson.”
He turned, stared at her suspiciously as though it might be a trick, then rechecked his list. “Lawson . . .” He ticked her off. “You know a Dunne?”
“If you want Janet, that’s her over there, in the green shorts.” Loretta nodded towards a narrow strip of lawn and flowerbed, the only area of the garden which had not been cordoned off with blue-and-white scene-of-crime tape. Eight or nine adults were waiting, unable to leave until they had been interviewed, and their faces swiveled eagerly towards the house as Loretta and the policeman emerged. Their expressions revealed shock, boredom and, in at least one case, irritation; according to Audrey, there had been a noisy scene earlier in the afternoon when Stephen Kaplan, shaking off his wife’s restraining arm, had protested at the pace of police inquiries and insisted that he and his family be allowed to go home as he was expecting an important phone call. There was no sign of Jane or the children, but Loretta saw that Stephen was striding towards them, his face thunderous.
“Who’s in charge here?”
Loretta drew back into the hall, avoiding the confrontation. Halfway up the stairs she met Sam, who greeted her with relief.
“Loretta—they through with you?”
“So it seems.”
“What’s going on?” He peered past her, hearing raised voices.
“Just Stephen Kaplan making a fuss—I’d let him get on with it if I were you.” She was suddenly weary, the emotional energy which had sustained her through the interview draining away like water into parched ground. She was also very hungry, having eaten nothing a
ll day except a single slice of toast for breakfast.
“OK . . .” He didn’t seem very sure. “I’d like to get Bridget out of here right now, before the . . . before the mortuary van shows up. Could you put some things in a bag—whatever you think she’s going to need? Hey, are you OK?”
“I’m tired, that’s all.” She brushed aside his concern. “Are you coming as well? My lodger moved out last week and there’s a double bed in her room.”
Sam shook his head, his face suddenly slack and preoccupied. “I have to stay here, keep an eye on those guys . . .” He glanced downstairs again and brightened; Loretta turned and saw that Stephen had gone back into the garden, leaving Janet Dunne and the beefy PC in the hall.
“My turn,” Janet called up ruefully.
“I’m sorry.” Sam spread his hands wide, indicating regret at his inability to intervene.
“Sam?” Loretta touched his arm, anxious to leave.
“Yeah, I’m—” He shook her off, then seemed to remember who she was. “Sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry, Loretta.” He led the way upstairs, the worried look returning as he tapped on the door of his and Bridget’s bedroom.
“Honey, it’s me.”
“Come in.”
Bridget’s voice was faint and tremulous. Loretta pulled her hair back from her face, massaged the back of her aching neck and followed Sam into the room.
“More wine?” Audrey Summers held up the bottle, reading the label aloud as she waited for Loretta’s reply. “Mor-bi-do, what’s that mean?”
“Soft,” said Loretta, looking for her glass. “It’s Italian for soft. Now where did I . . .”
“Are you fluent? I’d like to be but I don’t have a gift for languages.”
“I get by.” She spotted her glass on top of the bread bin and passed it to Audrey, who filled it. Behind her a pan of tomato sauce started to bubble on the hob and she turned to lower the heat. “This’11 be ready in a couple of minutes. I wonder if Bridget’s still asleep?”
“If she is we’ll just have to wake her up. She must eat something after all that vomiting. Have you got a tray?”
“In there.” Loretta nodded towards an old pine dresser in an alcove to the right of the fireplace. “I’ll drain the pasta.” She gripped a large stainless-steel pasta boiler by its handles and carried it to the sink.
“Interesting kitchen you’ve got here, this mixture of old stuff and all that white.” Audrey gestured towards the modern bit of the kitchen. “Was it here or did you have it done?”
“I had it done—I wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise.” Loretta divided the pasta between three plates and began spooning tomato sauce on top. She had bought the house almost exactly three years ago when Southmoor Road was still coming up, as the estate agent informed her; many of the houses were occupied by a transient population of genuine Oxford undergraduates and students of obscure private colleges which traded on their connection with the city. It had been Bridget’s idea, her excited response to Loretta’s glum account of trailing round a dozen unsuitable and hugely expensive maisonettes in London. “Move to Oxford! It’s not that much cheaper than Islington, but if you buy in the right place . . .” Loretta had not treated the suggestion seriously until Bridget sent details of the house in Southmoor Road with the chief attractions picked out in yellow highlighter: the long, pretty garden with a landing stage at the far end, and the fact that it was within walking distance of her own house.
“You’ve got all that money coming from America,” Bridget wheedled on the phone, recklessly inflating the sum for which Loretta’s literary agent was likely to sell the rights to her Edith Wharton biography in New York. “What else are you going to do with it? You could put the kitchen here”—by now Loretta had weakened and was standing in the gloomy basement room at the front of the house—“knock an arch through into the dining room, which would give you more light, and then have French windows opening into the garden.” Bridget had rushed from room to room, wishing away partitions and unblocking fireplaces with a wave of her hand until they were both convinced that renovating a three-story house (plus attics) was little more than a week’s hard work for an enthusiastic owner, an accommodating builder and a couple of strong friends.
“Why don’t you start?” Loretta told Audrey, putting a plate of penne before her. “There’s some grated Parmesan in the fridge. No, wait, I know exactly where it is.” She had remembered that the fridge needed cleaning, that its shelves were crammed with dried-up cheese, moldering pots of taramasalata and the remains of a roast chicken which she did not want Audrey to see. She opened the door and reached inside, feeling for the bowl of Parmesan behind a couple of Sainsbury’s ready-made curries, then turned at the unexpected sound of Bridget’s voice.
“I don’t know what that pill was, Audrey, but I feel a bit light-headed.” Bridget stood in the doorway, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Is there anything to eat?”
Bridget had borrowed Loretta’s dressing gown, a faded 1930s wrap she had found in the second-hand clothes shop in Walton Street. It fitted Loretta perfectly but the edges did not quite meet over the small bulge of Bridget’s stomach, falling open to reveal a glossy blue nightdress with shoestring straps. Loretta’s oyster silk, with its border of pastel flowers, looked anemic by comparison.
“Sit down.” Loretta hurried forward and pulled out a chair as Bridget swayed slightly in the doorway. “I was going to bring something up but now you’re here . . .” She began laying a third place at the table.
“What’s this?” Bridget reached for the almost empty wine bottle and appealed to Audrey; “Barbera d’Asti. Loretta always has such good wine. One glass won’t hurt, surely?”
“It won’t kill you,” Audrey admitted—rather tactlessly, Loretta thought, but Bridget appeared not to notice. She bunched the dressing gown in front of her and knelt in front of the wine rack. “OK if I open another one, Loretta?”
They ate in silence, Loretta casting sidelong glances at Bridget to see how she was coping. She had regained some color in her cheeks, and her eyes had lost the dull, unfocused gaze of someone in shock, but the skin around them was pink and swollen. So were her wrists when she reached across the table for the pepper grinder, but Loretta thought this was probably a symptom of her raised blood pressure. Bridget’s hair was uncombed and a pale blond tuft stuck up at the back, revealing darker roots below. She was naturally a dark blonde like Loretta, who teased her affectionately about the hours she spent at a hairdressing salon in North Parade, her head wrapped in foil while highlights were put in strand by strand.
“That was excellent, Loretta.” Audrey sounded faintly surprised as she pushed away her empty plate. “You must tell me what you put in your tomato sauce.”
“There’s more if you—” The phone chirruped for the first time in half an hour. Bridget pushed back her chair and made to get up, then looked at Loretta. “Aren’t you going to answer it?”
“I turned the answering machine on, there were so many calls.” She did not add that each time she picked it up she was afraid that the caller would turn out to be a reporter.
“But it might be Sam.” The ringing stopped and Bridget looked ludicrously disappointed.
“I don’t think so. He called while you were asleep and said not to disturb you. He sent his love and he’s going to ring again in the morning.”
This was not a strictly truthful account of either of Sam’s two calls; it was Loretta who had refused to run upstairs and wake Bridget, pointing out that she needed sleep far more than a conversation which would inevitably remind her of the afternoon’s distressing events. She had scarcely got Sam off the phone a second time when Bridget’s mother called, startling Loretta with her refusal to believe that her elder daughter was alive, uninjured and resting in the first-floor front bedroom. It had taken several minutes to discover the reason behind Mrs. Bennett’s importunate demands for reassurance, but it eventually became clear that the culprit was a thoughtless neighb
or who had rushed round to her house in Hitchin with the news that a woman’s body had been found at Thebes Farm near Oxford. The neighbor, having caught only the tail end of an item on the television news, encouraged Mrs. Bennett to think that Bridget was the victim, a misapprehension which inflated itself, when Bridget and Sam’s phone turned out to be perpetually engaged, into a Technicolor vision of rape, murder and mayhem in the Oxfordshire countryside.
Mrs. Bennett eventually got through to Sam, who explained that the dead woman was a complete stranger, but she insisted on being given Loretta’s number to check for herself. Loretta had had to talk to her for nearly half an hour, inwardly cursing the neighbor as either a ghoul or a complete idiot, before she would agree to let Bridget sleep on.
“Did he—I suppose the police are still there?”
“So it seems.” Sam’s immediate worry, which Loretta had already decided not to mention, was not the police but the press. They had descended on Thebes Farm in cars, vans and even an outside-broadcast unit, waylaying the last of the party guests as they left and hauling a TV camera onto the roof of a car to film over the wall as the body was removed. “The cops are keeping them away from the house but they can’t do anything about the phone,” he’d said tiredly, adding that he’d watched from an upstairs window as reporters strolled back to their vehicles and punched his number into their car phones.
“Poor old thing,” Bridget said fondly, confirming her ignorance of events at Thebes Farm. “I’ll ring him first thing, before he goes to work.”
“Speaking of which,” said Audrey, pushing back her chair and feeling for her handbag at her feet, “I’ve got surgery at a quarter to nine tomorrow morning.”
“You’re not going?” Bridget seemed astonished, even though Loretta had been trying to read Audrey’s watch upside down and now saw it was shortly before eleven o’clock. “I mean, we haven’t had a chance to talk.”