Lois Meade 03: Weeping on Wednesday (1987)

by Ann Purser

  Ann Purser

  Lois Meade

  Weeping on Wednesday

  #3

  2003

  The reclusive Abraham family live at a disused water mill outside of Long Farnden. Lois Meade is surprised when Enid Abraham applies for a job with Lois's cleaning company. Enid's brother goes missing and the police dismiss it. Then a tragedy strikes…

  One

  “Hello? Is that Mrs Meade? Mrs Lois Meade?” The voice was hesitant, quiet.

  “Yes, this is New Brooms. ‘We sweep cleaner! ‘ Can I help you?” Lois was sitting in her office, feet up on her desk, reading the classified section of the Tresham Advertiser. She was looking for new staff, and had an advertisement in today’s issue. Her question was met with silence. She tried again.

  “Hello, Mrs, er?…Are you there?”

  A throat was cleared, and then the quiet voice said, “Um, yes. I saw your advertisement, and thought I might suit. I…er…haven’t done anything like this before…” The voice trailed off again.

  “Well, d’you want to give me some details about yourself? Or I could call in and see you?”

  The answer was quick this time. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. I’ll put something down on paper today and get it in the post, and then I could come and see you, if you think I might be suitable.”

  Lois frowned. She liked to interview prospective cleaners in their own homes. It was always more revealing than pages of autobiography. She remembered only too well a previous applicant, smart on the streets but a slut at home. Fortunately Lois had not employed her, and just as well. That one had turned out to be enemy number one, and was now safely behind bars.

  “Give me your name and address,” she said now, “and your phone number, and after I’ve read your details I’ll get in touch.” Probably no good anyway, she decided, putting down the phone. She read what she had written on her notepad: Miss Enid Abraham, Cathanger Mill, near Waltonby, and then a telephone number. Lois shook her head. Sounded more like a below-stairs housemaid than one of the New Brooms team.

  Lois had been a cleaner herself. That was when they lived in a small house on an estate in Tresham, the local big town, and she’d chosen to take jobs in villages around. Every day a different house, a different family, and all intertwined in village affairs. She’d had a unique position, being at times a not unwilling eavesdropper, and often received confidences from wives or husbands who swore her to undying secrecy.

  After a scandal which rocked the village, the doctor she’d worked for in Long Farnden had moved away, and the Meades bought his house cheaply. It had had murderous associations, and nobody wanted it. But Lois knew every inch of the house, and had been fond of the doctor and his wife. She had no qualms about making an offer, and now she and her family spread themselves in the unaccustomed space.

  Lois Meade, the listening ear and receiver of secrets, had not passed unnoticed by Detective Inspector Hunter Cowgill, and he had enlisted her help on a couple of occasions. Both times had involved murder, and endangered both Lois and her family, her husband and three children. For this reason she had more or less, but not quite, promised her husband Derek not to succumb ever again to the wiles of Hunter Cowgill, and since the last murder case had been wound up, she’d heard nothing more from him. Until yesterday.

  Now she forgot about the strange woman on the phone, and thought again about Cowgill’s call. She’d put him off with an ambiguous answer, but she knew he’d be back. Never give up, that was Cowgill’s motto. And he knew that she’d be tempted, that she was fascinated by the jigsaw business of detection, and the dark world of crime and punishment. She’d been on the fringes of it herself during a mildly misspent youth. Once she’d ended up in a police cell, and had been really frightened. Persistent truancy from school had led to her being taken in and given a real bollocking by the police. They’d asked for her parents’ name, and she’d given another girl’s details. She’d always hated that prissy cow, and the bust-up that followed had been worth it!

  Lois laughed aloud, and her mother, coming in with a mug of coffee, looked at her in surprise. “Share the joke?” she said.

  “Nothin’ really, Mum,” she said. “Just remembering what an ‘orrible daughter I must’ve been.”

  “Yes, you were,” agreed Gran equably. “Still, you got better as you got older. How’re you doing? Was that a possible on the phone?”

  Lois shook her head. “Doubt it,” she said. “Strange woman. Didn’t say much and sounded sort of scared, as if she’d had to pluck up courage to ring. Not the sort we want in New Brooms.”

  The telephone rang again, and Gran turned to leave the room. “Better luck with this one,” she said.

  “New Brooms,” said Lois into the receiver. “You read the advertisement? Good, yes, give me some details and we’ll take it from there.”

  She picked up a pen, and began to write.

  Two

  “Looks like more hopeful cleaners,” said Derek. He had brought a handful of post in from the hall of the solid red-brick house where he and Lois lived with their three children: Josie, a typical fifteen-year-old with the useful stubborn feistiness of her mother; Douglas, a cool rising-fourteen; and Jamie, nearly twelve, and special to his mother and his gran, who also lived with them. And then there was Melvyn the cat, named after an unsuitable boyfriend who’d nearly spirited Josie away from them for ever.

  Lois slit open one of the envelopes and pulled out a sheet of plain white paper, covered with neat handwriting in black ink. None of your computer-literate students here! “Ah,” she said, looking at the address, “it’s the one I told you about. Miss Abraham, from Cathanger Mill…”

  “Blimey, Mum,” said Josie, “sounds like something out of a horror movie…”

  “Yeah, The Creature from Cathanger Mill!” Douglas stood up from the breakfast table. “School bus’ll be here in a minute…You lot’d better be ready.” He sloped off out of the kitchen and Lois heard him climbing the stairs at a languid two at a time.

  Jamie shoved his chair back with a rasp and followed his brother, and Lois noted his attempt at the sloping gait. Her baby…

  She smiled, and Derek said, “What’s funny? You said she sounded deadly…a real no-no?”

  “Haven’t read it yet,” she said, returning to the letter. It was very well written, with no mistakes in grammar or spelling as far as Lois could see, though she was the first to admit that she was none too clever herself in that department.

  “Well?” said Derek. He knew Lois well enough to know that her interest was caught by something in the letter. “Don’t keep us in suspense…what does she say?”

  Gran turned from the cooker with a frying pan full of sizzling bacon and added, “And for goodness sake sit down and have something to eat, Lois. You’re not going out on an empty stomach again, I hope!”

  Lois sat down, spreading the letter out in front of her. “‘Dear Mrs Meade’,” she began, “‘Further to our telephone conversation, I am writing to give you some particulars of myself and my past experience’.”

  “Very good,” said Josie, nodding wisely. “She’s been taught how to write a letter, that’s for sure. Go on, Mum.”

  “Get yourself off upstairs!” said Derek. “If you miss that bus, I’m not taking you to Tresham in the van again. Go and get yourself together, gel, or else…” His stern words could not hide his fondness for his first-born. The boys frequently accused him of favouritism, just because Josie was a girl, and though he denied it hotly, both he and Lois knew it was true.

  “‘I am forty years old, unmarried, and came to Cathanger when I was nineteen. Before that, we lived in Edinburgh, where my father w
as caretaker in a school. Mother originally came from this area, and wanted to move back’.”

  §

  “Wonder what her mother’s maiden name was?” said Gran. She’d lived around Tresham all her life, and claimed she knew everybody worth knowing.

  “Doesn’t say,” said Lois. “Anyway, it’s not important for New Brooms…”

  She read on to herself, until Gran said, “For goodness sake read it aloud – sounded interesting, like the beginning of a story.”

  “‘I worked in a chemist in Edinburgh’,” Lois continued, “‘and was promoted, though I was very young. It was in the old town, and had been established a long time ago. I loved the work, and was sorry when we had to leave. Since living in Cathanger, my mother did not thrive as we had hoped, and I have been unable to take a job. But I have run the house, cooking and cleaning, and so feel I could be of use to you. Circumstances have changed lately, and I have some free time, so could fit in with your requirements to some extent’.”

  “What circumstances?” said Derek suspiciously.

  “Doesn’t say,” said Lois. She frowned. “Bit odd, isn’t it,” she added, and continued to read. “‘I would be happy to come for interview, if you felt able to give me a try. Yours very truly, Enid Abraham (Miss’).”

  Gran began to collect the breakfast dishes and take them to the sink. “That’s what I call a proper letter,” she said approvingly. “I hope at least you’ll talk to her?”

  Oh yes, thought Lois, I’ll talk to her. And although she was fairly sure Miss Abraham would not do, there was something about the letter, the neat handwriting, the black ink, and the polite formality of it all, that whetted her appetite to know more.

  “OK, Mum,” she said, “I’ll give her a ring now, if that’ll make you happy. I bet she’s a pillar of the Women’s Institute. Probably does the flowers in church, an’ all that. Be a nice new friend for you?”

  As usual, she had hit the bullseye, and Gran laughed. “And what’s wrong with that?” she said. She added that if Lois would just finish her breakfast and get out of her way, she’d be able to get the mid-morning bus into Tresham to do a bit of shopping.

  §

  Detective Inspector Hunter Cowgill sat in his car, parked inconspicuously among others in the village hall car park. It was Long Farnden playgroup morning, and there were four or five other cars around him. He had just received a call from the local constable, Keith Simpson, who said something funny had been going on in the adjoining playing field. “Funny? Be a bit more specific, man!” he’d answered, and Simpson had told him that somebody had been digging with a spade down at the bottom of the field. Very strange-looking holes in the ground. The spade was still there. He’d be investigating, of course, but if Inspector Cowgill was in the area, he’d like him to take a look. He hadn’t liked to disturb the earthworks, he’d said, and the smile in his voice had irritated Cowgill, whose wife had been particularly sharp this morning. Sharper than usual. He sighed and got out of his car, pulled on Wellington boots to deal with the November mud, and set off for the bottom of the field.

  Squelching through puddles still lying on the surface after recent heavy rain, he came upon the ‘earthworks’. The spade was still there, an old one with a wobbly handle. There were hollows in the ground, and hillocks where someone had piled up the earth. Cowgill sighed. He had no idea what had been going on, and really did not care. Simpson should have sorted it out himself, without bothering the chief. He took out his handkerchief, snowy white and perfectly ironed as always, and blew his nose violently.

  “My God, what a trumpet!”

  Cowgill spun round, and saw Lois Meade. Her old coat and bobble hat failed to conceal her undoubted charms, and she struggled to control a large dog pulling at the lead in her hand.

  “Lois!” Cowgill recovered his equilibrium and put away the handkerchief quickly. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “What I always do every morning,” she said, smiling. “Taking old Polly’s dog for a walk. She’s nearly eighty-five – Polly, not the dog – and can’t give it enough exercise. Get’s me out for a walk, so it’s a good thing for both of us. How about you?” she added, knowing his well-honed ability to avoid answering questions.

  “Investigating a major crime, of course,” said Cowgill dryly. “It’s these hollows and hillocks. Constable Simpson thought they looked suspicious, especially as he failed to catch the hardened criminal who was digging here. And here is the murder weapon,” he added, lifting up one of the spades.

  Lois peered at it. “Looks like Derek’s!” she said. “Just wait ‘til I get hold of Douglas…”

  “So have you any valuable clues for me?” Cowgill felt his spirits rising. Lois always had this effect on him.

  “Oh yes,” said Lois blandly. “It’s a bike run…the kids do all kinds of acrobatics on them. But it’d be no good at this time of the year. Much too muddy. Still, if you want to arrest the villain now, I can give you particulars…and his criminal record…”

  “All right, all right,” said Cowgill. “But I’m glad I’ve met you. I want to have a talk about something serious…”

  “Not now, chum,” said Lois, setting off with the straining dog. She shouted over her shoulder, “The less I’m seen talking to you the better. See you!” she added cheerfully, and was halfway up the field before Cowgill had collected his thoughts.

  Three

  Monday, and, as usual, a team meeting in Lois’s office at midday. She’d had half a dozen replies to the advertisement, and wanted to sound out the others to see if they knew any of the names. This was partly a genuine wish to tap their local knowledge, but also, as she’d said to them at the outset, her policy was to make them all feel part of decisions taken as a team. They came to realize that this was rubbish, and that Lois never took any advice from anyone, but mostly they went along with the fiction happily enough.

  One of their number had vanished into the hands of the law – though remembered with some affection – and Lois now had only three cleaners: Bridie, her daughter Hazel, and Sheila Stratford, plus herself, and Josie in school holidays. She was looking for another two. There was enough work coming in now, and she wanted another male cleaner. Some jobs were better handled by a man. Still, she had to listen to the views of the others.

  “Could be he or she,” she said to the assembled team. “We want the best person for the job, don’t we?”

  Hazel Reading sniffed. “It was good having a man about. Women bicker, when there’s only them.”

  Lois raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. Bridie Reading had been Lois’s best friend since schooldays, and she and her daughter Hazel both worked for New Brooms. Hazel, sharp and suspicious, was now approaching twenty. She had, for a while, been involved in drugs and knew the score. She’d kicked the whole thing herself, but still knew a great deal about the scene, and kept Hunter Cowgill informed on the young and corrupt who got up to no good in Tresham and around. It had been coincidental that both Lois and Hazel had this other, undercover work in common, and it gave them a special relationship – sometimes close and mutually protective, and at other times edgy and suspicious. Still, they rubbed along, as Lois intended they should.

  The third member of the team, Sheila Stratford, was solidly rooted in rural life, and was not without strong opinions when challenged. She was married to a farm worker, had a daughter and grandchildren living close by, and came from generations of Stratfords now lying peacefully in Waltonby graveyard. When her husband said he thought she had enough to do at home without going out skivvying, she had tried to explain that working for New Brooms was different. It was a business, she’d said, almost like having a career. He’d laughed at that, but raised no further objections.

  Now Lois met Hazel’s challenge and said, “Haven’t noticed any bickering in New Brooms. But I see what you mean. Right, shall we get on now? We’ll start with our usual schedules, and then have a look at the new applicants. I’d appreciate your help on those.”
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br />   When they came to Enid Abraham, she read the letter out and looked round enquiringly. Hazel and Bridie shook their heads.

  “The name rings a bell,” said Bridie, “but you don’t see anybody about down there, except an old man out in the yard sometimes. Keep themselves to themselves, folk say.”

  “Spooky place,” said Hazel. “I’ve been by there at night, and there’s never any lights. This Miss Abraham sounds all right, though…bit old-fashioned…”

  “Do you know them, Sheila?” said Lois, and wondered why she looked uncomfortable. Sheila had lived in Waltonby, the nearest village to Cathanger, all her life and was the most likely to be forthcoming.

  “Yeah, I know them.” Sheila stopped and bit her lip.

  “Well?” said Lois, frowning.

  “There’s four of ‘em,” Sheila said hesitantly.

  “Three, don’t you mean?” said Lois.

  “No, four, the old man and his wife, the daughter, Enid, and a son.”

  “A son?” said Lois. “She doesn’t mention having a brother. Are you sure?”

  “Sure as eggs is eggs,” said Sheila firmly. “He worked with Sam on the farm for a bit. Didn’t last, though. Funny bloke. Something happened, and he left. Haven’t seen him since. Edward, his name was, and wouldn’t answer to Ted. Sam said he thought himself too good for the job. They didn’t get on…”

  “Mm, well, I’ll have a word with her,” said Lois. “Worth a word, do you reckon?” She looked at Bridie and Hazel, and they nodded. They weren’t really bothered one way or the other. It was the bloke on the list that interested Hazel, and Bridie’s thoughts were on her next job, her favourite, cleaning at the vicarage for Reverend Rogers.

  Three other women were dismissed as not flexible enough, or without a car, and one had no telephone. “Why do they apply?” said Hazel.

  “Some don’t read the ad properly,” said Lois, picking up the last applicant’s details. “Now, this one is twenty-two, working at present as a nursing auxiliary and likes the idea of going out and about round the countryside.”