The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7

by Maxim Jakubowski

  FUNERAL WEATHER

  Kate Ellis

  DEATH CAME SILENTLY to Flora Politson on Friday the thirteenth of April.

  At sixty-one years of age, Flora – the plump widow of a wealthy Liverpool merchant and mistress of a grand stucco villa in Fulwood Park, some three miles from the smells of the city and the bustle of the docks – had appeared to be in the best of health. But Dr Willis knew that good health is often no defence against a visit from the Grim Reaper.

  Willis, with his great mutton chop whiskers and his battered leather bag, was more adept at charming wealthy ladies than he was at diagnosis, but he gave his verdict with the certainty of holy writ. Flora Politson had died of heart failure. A sudden and merciful end.

  The small, pale young man with sandy hair who accompanied the doctor looked no older than the butcher’s boy who came whistling up the drive of Mortaber Villa each day on his bicycle. However, from his manner of dress and the leather doctor’s bag he clutched in his right hand, Biddy – the late Mrs Politson’s maid – guessed that he was assisting Dr Willis in some way. But it wasn’t her place to ask questions.

  Biddy stood near the bedroom, smoothing her crisp, white apron with restless fingers as the doctor and his companion bent over Mrs Politson who lay, as though asleep, on the bed. Biddy thought her mistress looked so peaceful lying there, her arms crossed neatly on her chest. The snowy lace counterpane was pulled up to her scrawny neck and her hair, spread out on the pillow, was iron grey and fluffy like the rain clouds that hung over the River Mersey that morning.

  Biddy gazed out of the sash window at the gardens below with their bushy laurels lining the sweeping drive. It had begun to rain, a thin, miserable drizzle. Funeral weather, her mother used to say. Weather for death.

  Dr Willis interrupted Biddy’s thoughts by touching her arm and she flinched. He’d touched her before, his large, clammy hand patting her small rough one. Lingering too long. The younger man was still standing by the bed, silent and thoughtful, studying Flora’s dead face and Biddy doubted he’d have noticed Dr Willis’s over-familiar gesture. And even if he had seen, he would no doubt have kept his opinions to himself – as underlings and servants must.

  Biddy cleared her throat. “Begging your pardon, sir,” she said, lowering her eyes. “But how did the mistress die? She wasn’t ill or nothing.”

  The doctor gave Biddy a small, patronizing smile. “Your mistress has suffered with a weak heart for many years.” He didn’t bother elaborating further. Why should he, for a maidservant with a round, pudding face and lank, mousy hair tucked up under her cap.

  “The undertakers will be here presently,” the doctor said. A speck of saliva escaped his lips and Biddy looked away. Something about him reminded her of George, the footman at the house on Catherine Street where she’d once worked. She had been fourteen then and she’d had no experience of men . . . until she caught George’s lecherous bloodshot eye. She imagined she could smell him now, the scent of his sweat as he had held her close to him – when he did what he liked to do when the cook’s back was turned and the staff were all busy with their chores. Biddy felt her body trembling at the very thought of George’s touch . . . of his clammy hand thrusting up her skirts, touching and kneading the places her mother had told her nobody but her husband should be privy to. She glanced at the dead woman on the bed, trying to banish the memories of her humiliation.

  Dr Willis gave her a businesslike smile. “I shall sign the death certificate and leave it here. Mr Politson will be here shortly. I have sent word that his mother has passed away.”

  “Mr Politson called this morning, sir,” Biddy said, almost in a whisper.

  The doctor looked at her, frowning. “I didn’t know.”

  “He stayed about half an hour, sir. Him and the mistress . . .” She stopped herself. It wasn’t her place to gossip about her betters and she was aware that she’d said enough already.

  Dr Willis shuffled his feet. “I don’t think that’s any concern of ours, Biddy.” He turned and addressed the young man. “Dr Carson, there’s nothing more we can do here.”

  The young man made no move to leave but looked straight at Biddy with an intensity that made her uncomfortable. “Please go on, Biddy. What were you saying about Mr Politson and your mistress?” He glanced at the corpse on the bed as though he expected it to rise at any moment and join in the conversation.

  “If you please, sir, they . . . they had words, sir. That’s all.” Biddy sounded wary.

  “What kind of words?”

  “Harsh ones, sir. We could hear them in the servants’ hall. But it’s not my place to say any more.”

  “Indeed,” Willis interrupted, impatient.

  “I don’t suppose you caught the, er . . . sense of these harsh words, did you?”

  “Not the sense, sir. I just heard raised voices. As though they were quarrelling, sir.”

  “Doctor Carson, it is time we were going,” Willis said firmly. “This unfortunate girl can hardly be expected to pass judgment on the affairs of her employers. The death was natural and that is an end to the matter.”

  Dr Willis looked at the corpse again, a little uneasy. Flora Politson had quarrelled with her son – and a few hours later, Flora Politson had been found dead by her maid. But Willis had known the family for years and, as far as he was concerned, people of the Politsons’ standing in the community were above suspicion. It was high time young Dr Carson, his assistant of three months, learned this before he committed the grave sin of insulting his betters. “Dr Carson, come. We have patients to see.”

  But Carson ignored the order. He walked back to the bed and bent over the dead woman, sniffing the air around her. Alongside an empty bottle marked laudanum on the bedside table, stood a half-drunk cup of tea, the milk formed into dead swirls on the surface. He sniffed at it before placing his hand beneath the dead woman’s head and lifting it gently. For a few moments he studied the pillow closely, then he lowered the head again.

  “Is anything the matter, sir?” Biddy asked, craning her neck to see what was going on.

  Before Carson could answer, Willis spoke again, impatient. “Come, Carson, we have calls to make. Biddy, tell Waggs that the undertaker is expected.”

  Biddy scurried from the room and made for the servant’s hall where she knew the butler, Mr Waggs, was polishing the silver. As she reached the foot of the stairs she heard Dr Carson’s voice. “I’m not satisfied, doctor,” he was saying. “I wish to make a more thorough examination.”

  “Nonsense,” Willis barked as he swept down the staircase, almost colliding with Biddy who had stood aside with her head bowed, ready to see the medical men off the premises.

  Biddy watched the younger doctor hesitate at the front door. Then he turned to address her. “Biddy, just one thing, if you please. Had your mistress pricked herself at all . . . a finger perhaps . . . or some part of her face or . . .?”

  Biddy frowned in an effort to remember. Then she nodded. “She pricked her finger yesterday, sir, when she was sewing. Drove a needle in almost to the bone, sir.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Oh yes, sir. It bled something awful.”

  Carson nodded. “Come, Biddy. Show me if you will.”

  Biddy hesitated for a few moments before returning upstairs to Flora’s bedside. She watched while the doctor uncovered the dead woman’s hands. Sure enough, on her left forefinger was a pinprick wound, half-healed now but still visible. Unexpectedly, Carson picked up the cup containing the dregs of tea and poured a little of the liquid into a small glass vial which he popped into his waistcoat pocket before thanking Biddy again and hurrying out to join his colleague downstairs in the hallway. Biddy saw Dr Willis shoot the young man a hostile glance. His professional opinion had been questioned. Or his incompetence had been discovered.

  Biddy bobbed a curtsy as the two doctors left then she hurried across the hall and pushed open the green baize door that led to the servants’ quarters.

  Death
had visited the house. And death meant more work. Until the arrival of the police brought everything to a sudden halt.

  Reginald Politson was the only son and heir of Flora Politson and the late Septimus Politson Esquire. Septimus himself had been a man of ambition and by the time of his death seven years ago, he had made a fortune supplying the voracious needs of the Liverpool shipping industry. Reginald had been a disappointment to him – all the servants knew that – and after her husband’s death, Flora had kept her dainty hands on the company’s tiller. But now she was dead, Reginald would have free rein to run the business as he thought fit. And there were many, servants’ hall gossip had it, who thought that he would run it into the ground.

  Reginald was a swarthy man in his mid-thirties. And he was unmarried which some in the servants’ hall took as a sign of dissipation. A respectable young man in Reginald’s position should take a wife and those that didn’t were definitely suspect. Biddy had overheard one of the footmen telling Daisy the parlour maid that Mr Politson preferred the company of men but Biddy was uncertain what he had meant by that. At least he didn’t pester the female servants like some. At least she didn’t have to go about the house in fear that he might creep up on her, pull her into a room and use her to satisfy his desires, panting like an animal above her, hurting her like her old master at the house in Canning Place had done.

  Biddy served tea to Mr Politson and the family solicitor, Mr Jaques, in the drawing room. The house was now in deep mourning – black crêpe everywhere and a large black bow tied to the front door. The undertakers, with their long, serious faces and discreet footsteps, had called and Mrs Politson had been laid out properly in her bed, receiving visitors in death as she had done in life.

  Flora Politson’s only son and her solicitor wore suitably solemn expressions as they discussed whatever they were discussing. As Biddy set down the tray, Mr Politson looked restless and uncomfortable and perhaps, she thought, also a little guilty. But she told herself that the man had just lost his mother suddenly and he was probably in shock.

  The policemen arrived at six o’clock. Mr Waggs admitted the inspector and the plump uniformed constable through the front door with plain disapproval. As far as Mr Waggs was concerned, policemen should use the tradesmen’s entrance. Mr Waggs had once worked for a titled gentleman and was a stickler for the proprieties.

  The inspector, a large man with a bald head and ruddy cheeks, was closeted with Mr Politson and his solicitor for a full half hour before Biddy was summoned from the servants’ hall to the dining room. Inspector Always wished to speak with her.

  Biddy hadn’t had dealings with the police before but her brothers said that they were best avoided. Police meant trouble and her brothers were usually right about that sort of thing. They’d had to be. Their parents had travelled to Liverpool from County Mayo on a crowded boat to be packed into a cellar in one of the mean, filthy courts that lay between St James Street and the docks with their children and the rats. Four of their children had died. But Biddy and her two brothers had survived.

  She entered the dining room and saw the constable sitting awkwardly in the corner of the room, his notebook at the ready, while the inspector sat in one of the dining chairs at the huge polished table. The inspector smiled as he invited her to sit. He had a kind face. But she’d known men with kind faces before – and they sometimes weren’t what they seemed.

  “Now, Biddy, you must tell the truth, do you understand?”

  Biddy nodded.

  “There was a small bottle by your mistress’s bed. Do you know what it contained?”

  “Her laudanum, sir. Took it every night without fail, she did . . . to sleep.”

  “Dr Carson suspects there was some in her tea. He’s saying the dose might have killed her.”

  Biddy’s hand went to her mouth in horror. “She never took it in tea, sir. She took it in water last thing at night.”

  “Would you say anything had upset your mistress recently, Biddy? Think carefully.”

  Biddy frowned. “She had words with Mr Politson . . . her son. They were arguing like . . .” She stopped herself. She mustn’t say too much.

  “You didn’t overhear what they were saying by any chance?” The inspector gave her a knowing wink. Servants listened at keyholes. Servants knew things.

  Biddy blushed. “I heard the words . . . immoral . . . and unnatural. And the mistress asked him why he didn’t get himself a wife. I couldn’t make out everything Mr Politson said in reply, sir. But he sounded angry. He said she’d be sorry.”

  “Were those his exact words?”

  Biddy considered the question for a few moments. “Those or something very like them, sir.”

  The inspector smiled again. He reminded her of the priest at the church near where she used to live – he had always made her feel guilty too. She swallowed hard. “Will that be all, sir?”

  The inspector nodded. “For the moment,” he said.

  Biddy made straight for the servants’ hall. And by the end of the day word had spread that the police thought Flora Politson had been poisoned.

  And when Biddy piped up that she was sure she’d taken an overdose by accident, nobody believed her.

  On her afternoon off Biddy was grateful to escape from the heavy blanket of mourning that had enveloped the house from scullery to attic. The mistress’ death was the only topic of conversation in the servants’ hall and, as nothing more had been seen of the police for several days, everyone assumed that the initial suspicion about the cause of Flora’s death had been dispelled, to the disappointment of some. There had already been an inquest and the coroner had given his verdict. Accidental death. Mrs Flora Politson had taken her usual laudanum then she had taken a further dose, no doubt distracted by her quarrel with Reginald, her only son.

  The funeral arrangements, a little delayed by the inquest, were now in progress and Reginald Politson was playing the grieving son to perfection, receiving the condolences of Liverpool society who paid their dutiful calls with solemn faces and tearful eyes.

  It was to be a grand funeral, as befitted a woman of Flora’s standing, held in a few days’ time at St Anne’s church. Cook was working herself up into a state of near hysteria about the catering arrangements. But Cook worked herself up about most things.

  At one o’clock that afternoon, Biddy left the bustling house by the servants’ entrance, securing her new hat firmly with a hat pin. The wind was blowing in strongly from the River Mersey and you couldn’t be too careful as far as new hats were concerned. She made for Sefton Park, walking purposefully towards the new bandstand. She was meeting Michael there and she didn’t want to be late. Michael was her favourite brother, always smiling, always ready with a quip. She didn’t care that he’d been in trouble with the police, or that he earned what money he had playing cards with strangers in pubs. He was her Michael. Her darling big brother.

  She hurried onwards past the park lake. It looked like paradise with all those trees and the water glistening in the weak sunlight and she was unaware of being followed, of the footsteps behind her echoing her own on the new stone path. So when she heard someone calling her name softly, she swung round, bringing her hand to her breast as if to still her pounding heart.

  Reginald Politson stood there, shifting from foot to foot. His dress was immaculate as usual but he looked pale and there were dark rings beneath his eyes as though he hadn’t slept. And he looked frightened. “Biddy.” He spoke with his habitual smooth charm but Biddy sensed his anxiety. “I’m glad I caught up with you. I need to speak to you.”

  Biddy said nothing. She stared at his shoes. They were shiny. You could almost see the reflection of the grey clouds overhead in them. He offered his arm and she hesitated before taking it. Gentlemen were dangerous. She’d thought Mr Politson was different somehow – but now she wasn’t so sure. She slipped her arm through his stiffly.

  “It’s a delicate matter,” he began as they walked. “The police wish to see me again. Look,
Biddy, they might want to talk to the servants too. And if they do, I need you to tell them I never entered her bedroom that day.” He stopped suddenly and looked at her with wide, pleading eyes. Like a child . . . or a dog.

  Biddy straightened her back. For the first time in her life she had power. And she wasn’t sure how to use it.

  But after a few moments she shook her head. “I’ve got to tell the truth, sir. I don’t want to go to hell, do I?”

  She spotted Michael, sheltering in the trees, waiting, watching impatiently. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, pulling her arm away. “I’m meeting someone. I’ve got to go now.”

  As she hurried off towards the trees, it began to rain.

  Henry Carson MD had calls to make. Not that anybody was ill, but there were things he had to check. He had looked through all the notes Dr Willis had made during his years working as a physician in the town of Liverpool. Willis, he knew, worked chiefly amongst the wealthy that dwelled in considerable comfort in the fine Georgian houses around Rodney Street and Catherine Street. Carson himself, after a few weeks of assisting Willis in his work, had taken to salving his sensitive conscience by helping at a clinic for the poor of the squalid courts – so close to the mansions of the rich but in a different and lower world.

  But today it was the rich who concerned him. Three of Dr Willis’ wealthy patients to be precise. He spread the records of their deaths before him on his desk and moved the oil lamp a little closer. The similarities were unmistakable. But he had no evidence. Only vague suspicions.