by Ann Granger
I turned away and left her. I don’t know quite where I intended going, probably straight to the station and back to London; then I saw Jennifer Stallard had moved away from the others and was standing alone in the shadow of the building. Mickey, Lisa and their lawyer had their heads together, not looking my way.
I hesitated but common courtesy dictated I expressed my condolences to the widow. I went over to her, cleared my throat and said tentatively, ‘Jennifer? You remember me? Fran.’
She turned her head and smiled, a slow sad smile which didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Yes, dear, of course I do.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, ‘about your husband.’
‘Thank you.’ Her gaze drifted away from me towards the group of three conferring together.
I said awkwardly, ‘He’ll look after her.’
‘Mr Allerton? Oh yes, you know Lisa’s fiancé,’ she said.
Fiancé? Mickey was making sure things were going to be done according to his rules from now on. I peered across at the consulting group of three again and could just make out a sizeable stone on Lisa’s ring finger.
‘He employed me,’ I said bleakly, ‘to come to Oxford, as you heard back there in court. I’m sorry about that, too. I didn’t do it by choice or for the money. There was another reason.’
She seemed not to have heard me. ‘I did hope,’ she said, ‘that one day Lisa and Ned might make a match of it. I suppose I knew it was unlikely but we’ve known Ned for years and he and Lisa were such good friends.’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled. ‘I suppose Allerton isn’t quite what you had in mind for a son-in-law.’
She hunched her shoulders. ‘I hoped she’d choose sensibly. I was worried when I knew she’d taken up with a married man but now that his divorce is going through and they are to be married . . . well, I have to accept it.’
I blinked. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You knew she’d taken up with Allerton? You knew before all this?’
Now she turned back to me and her smile was both warmer and more rueful. ‘It doesn’t do to check up on your adult children. They don’t like it. Lisa never knew but I did check up on her. I knew all along what kind of work she did at that club. I knew that man - Mr Allerton - had put her in a flat. I knew, when you came to our door, that you’d probably come from him. But I couldn’t do anything, say anything. I didn’t want Paul to find out. If Lisa had found out that I’d, well, snooped, she’d have been so angry. Even worse, she’d have been so upset. She didn’t want us to know. It would have hurt her terribly to find out we did know, or at least I knew. I couldn’t tell my husband. He had a rather unreal view of Lisa.’ Jennifer’s mouth twitched. ‘Men like to believe their daughters are always Daddy’s little girl. They don’t like the idea of them growing up. Funnily, when I did admit to Lisa, after Paul died, that I’d always known, she was relieved. We both cried. I told her I understood and that everything would be all right now. And it will be.’
She spoke these last words with a kind of serenity.
I stood there frozen to the spot and unable to breathe a word. Eventually I managed to croak, ‘It was you! You picked up that branch and pushed Ivo’s head under the water! Lisa knows you did it.’
She sighed. ‘I had to tell her after the police came to the house and it looked for a while as if they might accuse Lisa of causing his death. I told her not to worry. I had done it but I’d tell the police and Lisa would be in the clear. Lisa said I mustn’t breathe a word. Mr Allerton would get her a lawyer if she asked and it would be all right.’
Jennifer frowned and nodded towards the lawyer a little distance away. Allerton was shaking him warmly by the hand, a really happy little scene.
‘Certainly he seemed a very competent man when he turned up. He told us that the coroner’s verdict would almost certainly be accidental death. We were a little worried, Lisa and I, when the police spoke of further forensic tests. But Lisa said we were to keep our nerve and keep our mouths shut. We did keep our nerve and our silence but I can tell you, because I want you to know, that Lisa didn’t kill him and I know you won’t say anything to anyone. Mr Allerton pays you too, doesn’t he?’
I wanted to burst out that, whatever Allerton paid me for, it wasn’t to keep quiet about murder. But she was right. I would keep quiet. This unfortunate woman’s life had been devoted to an ailing querulous husband. Her one joy was her daughter. Jennifer now had a chance of a good life of her own, Mickey would see to that, and a grandchild to look forward to. I could destroy all that with a word in Pereira’s ear. It was a word I could never drop.
‘What did you do?’ I whispered. ‘Follow Lisa?’
‘That morning? Yes. Paul was asleep. He’d had a very bad night and eventually took some sleeping pills which knocked him out. I got up early and went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I heard movement and looked into the hall. Lisa was sneaking out. I knew something was up. I was worried about her. I knew Paul wouldn’t waken until nearly lunchtime. So I hurried after Lisa and tracked her to Christ Church Meadow. I couldn’t imagine what she wanted there. Then I saw her meet that awful man. I could see from her body language how scared she was and from his how threatening he was. He was a strange-looking man, very tall and strong with blond hair, good-looking, I suppose, yet somehow, I don’t know how to describe it, there was something wrong about him. They began to argue and I was about to run out and let them see I was there. I was so frightened for my daughter. But then I saw her delve into a cloth bag she had with her and she brought out a snake. I’m sure it was the one from our garden, the grass snake my husband always called Arthur. She held it out towards the man and the result was remarkable, extraordinary. He became a gibbering wreck. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He waved his arms around and his eyes bulged. He was truly terrified. He staggered back away from her and he fell in the river with a tremendous splash, water going everywhere. Lisa ran away and I came out from my hiding place. He was threshing about and making for the bank. So, so I picked up the branch lying nearby and pushed him back in. I held his head under.’
She stared at me, her eyes wide and dark with memory. ‘I did it for my daughter,’ she said. ‘I thought he’d come to take her back to London and she didn’t want to go. I thought, if she didn’t go with him, he’d do something to her, attack her, perhaps scar her face . . . one reads about such things.’
She had done it for Lisa. Lisa, who after all that had happened had been on the point of escaping both Ivo and Mickey Allerton for ever, had been forced to turn back to Allerton to ask for his help. He, in return, had made clear his price.
‘Mummy!’ Lisa’s voice came across the intervening space, a worried note in it.
Jennifer broke off her narrative and gave herself a little shake as if awakening from a bad dream. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I must go. It was nice to see you again, dear.’
I watched her rejoin them. Allerton bent over her solicitously. He would be a most attentive son-in-law.
Someone else had been watching the scene. I almost walked into him as I turned to leave and he stepped in front of me.
‘That’s him, then,’ he said. ‘That’s Allerton. He looks like a thug.’
‘Hello, Ned,’ I exclaimed. ‘I didn’t see you in court. What are you doing here?’
I meant, why was he putting himself through all this agony? His unhappiness seeped out of him.
He stared at me morosely. ‘I stood at the back and slipped out before you all turned round and saw me. I know I’ve been an idiot but that doesn’t mean I want everyone pointing me out. This is all your fault, you know. She’d have got away from him but for you.’
‘Rubbish!’ I said. ‘Of course it’s not my fault and don’t go imagining Mickey Allerton is so easy to escape. Look, Ned, things don’t have to be anyone’s fault. It’s just life. Lisa made a choice when she went after Allerton. She got more than she bargained for but she should have thought about that.’ I took pity on him because he looked so stricken. ‘Come on, Allerton
will look after her and Jennifer.’
‘It’s about money, isn’t it?’ he said as if he’d just discovered a new law of nature.
‘The apple’s dropped, has it?’ I apologised immediately. ‘Sorry, Ned.’
He flushed and burst out, ‘She wasn’t like that before she went to London. Lisa was different when I knew her here in Oxford. She was gentle, sweet-natured and all she wanted to do was dance. She’d never have got herself involved with a man like that!’ He threw out a quivering hand to point to where Allerton had stood.
‘Sure,’ I said wearily. Let him keep his image of her. ‘But you can’t undo what’s happened, Ned.’
He just grunted at me and strode off. I told myself he’d get over it. Not quickly, and not easily, but eventually.
I went to see Beryl before I left, partly to tell her the result of the inquest but mainly to say goodbye properly. I liked her. She seemed to be expecting me and led me downstairs to her sanctum where Spencer leapt about in his demented manner. Seeing him almost made me regret coming. There would be no dog to greet me when I got home. I hadn’t thought I could feel the loss of an animal so keenly.
Beryl urged tea and biscuits on me and asked how it had gone.
‘From Allerton’s viewpoint, pretty well,’ I said. ‘The verdict was accidental death.’ I explained about Lisa and the grass snake and Ivo’s ophidophobia. I couldn’t tell her about Jennifer. That was something I couldn’t ever tell anyone, not even Ganesh.
‘Well, I never,’ said Beryl comfortably when I came to the end of my narrative. ‘I’m glad things have turned out all right for Mickey.’
‘When I first came here,’ I said, ‘you knew exactly why I’d come, didn’t you? You knew about Lisa and her relationship with Mickey and all the rest of it?’
Beryl tucked a stray wisp of red hair behind an oversized pearl earring. ‘Of course I knew about her, Fran dear. Mickey got in touch with me straightaway, the minute she ran off and left him. He was in such a state you’d hardly believe it, babbling down the phone. I could hardly believe it was Mickey. We’re old friends. He had to talk to someone so he poured it all out to me. He reckoned she’d come to Oxford because one of the other girls had told him her parents lived here. He wanted me to find her and talk her into going back to him.
‘I told him straight off I was the wrong person for the job, a washed up ex-dancer with a false leg, old enough to be her mum.’ Beryl chuckled throatily. ‘What you need,’ I said to Mickey, ‘is someone of her own age and type, someone dreaming of being in the entertainment business, like her.’
I don’t know if Beryl saw me wince at that. If she did, she ignored it and went on, ‘ “You look round and find the right girl,” I told him. Seems like he listened to my advice and he did.’ Beryl nodded at me approvingly.
‘One thing’s been bothering me,’ I said. ‘Mickey could’ve forced her to come back if he’d threatened to get in touch with her parents. She was desperate to keep them from knowing what she’d been up to in London. He must have had a shrewd idea that was the case.’
Beryl looked past me into the middle distance. ‘He wouldn’t have done that to her, not feeling the way he does about her.’ She hunched her shoulders. ‘He must be getting on, Mickey. We’re none of us as young as we were. But age doesn’t matter.’
‘You’re not going to tell me, I hope,’ I said, trying to keep the incredulity from my voice, ‘that he’s in love. He wants to own her, but that’s not the same thing.’
‘What’s the matter? Love is only for the young?’ Beryl’s gaze returned to me, surprisingly sharp. ‘Twenty, forty, fifty, you can make a fool of yourself over someone at any age. Only don’t tell Mickey I said so!’
‘It’s not my intention to tell him anything!’ I retorted.
She gave me another sharp look but she didn’t ask what in particular I meant by the remark. Some information it’s easier not to have.
I went home, but forgetting about everything that had happened wasn’t easy. I just couldn’t get over it all. It wasn’t Mickey’s love-lorn heart that bothered me. It was that other, far more frightening, love of which Jennifer had given me a terrifying glimpse. Mother love. I’d many times wondered about the nature of any love my defaulting mother might have had for me. I’d deplored its fickleness and so often wished it had been stronger. But was the alternative this? Jennifer loved her daughter with a strength that had led her to commit a dreadful crime. The knowledge of that had given Lisa a burden of responsibility she would carry all her life.
I hoped it was now all over with but a week later a ring at my flat bell announced a visitor. I wasn’t overjoyed to see Filigrew on the doorstep clutching a well-worn document satchel to his less-than-manly chest. I wasn’t that surprised, either. Mickey was tidying up the loose ends and I was about to be bought off.
‘Hello, Mervyn,’ I said without enthusiasm.
My instinct was to tell Filigrew to go away. But he’d argue and I wasn’t going to have a slanging match with him on the doorstep with any passer-by chancing to overhear, so I was obliged to invite him into the flat.
His lack of enthusiasm was equal to mine. He sidled in, his manner suggesting he was entering a den of lions, and stood by the door of the room, ready for flight. He looked much as he’d done in Oxford, pale and tidy with a drab suit and a puce tie. I didn’t invite him to sit down and he didn’t appear to expect it. We both wanted to get this over with.
‘I have come from Mr Allerton,’ he said stiffly.
‘I don’t want anything more to do with Mickey Allerton,’ I said promptly. ‘Tell him so.’
He ignored my outburst. ‘Mr Allerton is satisfied with your work on his behalf. Also, he is sorry to hear about your dog being lost.’
At this my jaw dropped and I said nothing.
‘So,’ said Filigrew, laying down the document satchel and unbuckling it, ‘I am asked to give you this.’ He drew out a plump plain brown envelope and held it out to me.
‘I don’t want it,’ I said.
Filigrew gave me a weary look. ‘It was agreed. Mr Allerton would pay you the balance of what he owed you, depending on results. Miss Stallard has returned to London and Mr Allerton considers you did very well.’
‘Is she back in St John’s Wood?’ I asked, diverted.
‘No,’ said Filigrew unwillingly. ‘I believe she is living at another address.’
So Julie had at least been successful in claiming the flat. Not that it made much difference. Lisa was now installed in a similar one elsewhere.
‘I still don’t want that,’ I said, indicating the envelope.
Filigrew sighed and put it down on the table by the document satchel. ‘Whether you want it or not is quite irrelevant,’ he told me. ‘Mr Allerton wishes you to have it. I am instructed to give it to you and I have done so.’ He rebuckled his ancient satchel and tucked it under his arm. ‘You will find he has included an additional sum as compensation for the dog. I think that concludes our business. Goodbye.’
When he had left I picked up the envelope and prised back one corner of the seal. It was stuffed with notes. I didn’t know how much it contained and I didn’t care. I didn’t want it. I particularly didn’t want money in compensation for Bonnie. How could he do that? Just think he could pay me off like that? It was entirely his fault Bonnie wasn’t here with me. Allerton had got what he wanted and felt generous. He didn’t have a clue how I felt. How could he imagine money would take Bonnie’s place? But a man like that believes money solves any problem. Knowing Lisa would only have confirmed him in that belief.
I sat for a while on my sofa, drinking coffee, contemplating the envelope and wondering what to do with it. I was so angry he’d added money for Bonnie I felt like burning the whole thing. I couldn’t return it to Mickey and I couldn’t keep it. Not that I hadn’t earned it! Even leaving Bonnie’s loss out of it (although that mattered to me more than anything), I’d got a black eye from his girlfriend Lisa and a bruised arm from her ch
um Ned. Fortunately both injuries had subsided by now. I had the use of the arm again and the area around the eye showed only a faint mauve tinge. The woman on the train would be pleased.
Battered women! I thought, sitting up so suddenly I nearly spilled the coffee. How could I have forgotten St Agatha’s Refuge? I had even gone there a couple of times during my search for a missing person in a previous case. Ideal! I thought. It was local too. I got a pen and wrote on the envelope: ‘To the Secretary, St Agatha’s Refuge for Women.’ I waited until it was dark and trotted round to the refuge. There were lights showing at upper windows and I could hear a very small baby crying. The front door showed signs of recent violent assault and the window to the left of the door was boarded up temporarily. This sort of damage was standard at St Agatha’s. I pushed the envelope through the letter box and heard it fall to the parquet floor on the other side with a satisfying thud. A weight lifted from my chest.
‘Good!’ I said aloud. ‘That’s settled with you, Mr Allerton!’