The Hangman's Row Enquiry

by Ann Purser

  All Ivy’s strictures about remembering why she was there flew out of the window. Useful conversation later, she said to herself, plenty of time later.

  Thirty

  SADIE BROOMFIELD WAS very surprised to see a figure standing by her car as she returned from the supermarket. She was shortsighted, and could not see exactly who it was. Surely not a policewoman! She had definitely put money in the machine and the ticket was on her car’s dashboard, visible to anyone.

  As she got nearer, she saw that it was Miss Beatty from the Hall. What on earth was she doing there? Not my favourite person, she said to herself. Nobody’s favourite person. Still, if the woman was in trouble, it was her neighbourly duty to help.

  “Miss Beatty!” she said. “Can I help you?”

  Beattie explained that she needed to get back early to the village. “Something’s come up, I’m afraid, and I must be back as soon as possible. I knew you were in town most Saturdays, and hoped to find you. I recognised your car, of course,” she added, as pleasantly as she could. “Such a sensible little vehicle,” she added.

  Sadie’s car was a bright red Smart Sport, and she was very proud of it. “Delighted to give you a lift,” she said. “Jump in, while I stow my shopping. There’s room for all,” she said. This was an exaggeration, but in due course she, Beattie and the shopping were shoehorned in, and they set off.

  Conversation was difficult. Sadie had never spent more than two minutes in Beattie’s company, and now had nothing to say to her. She had tried asking what the emergency was, but got no answer. Miss Beatty was silent for at least half of the return journey, until she said suddenly, “Do you know Mrs. Bloxham?”

  “Only by sight,” Sadie said. “Seems a nice enough woman. She always smiles.”

  “Huh!” said Beattie. “She won’t be smiling when I get home.”

  Sadie was about to ask her more about this odd remark, when a loud bang followed by a series of bumps caused her to stop the car and pull into the side. She got out, and her heart sank. It would happen this afternoon, when she had that unpleasant passenger! A flat tyre, and the first one since she had bought the car. She had no idea how to change it, nor did she intend to try.

  Beattie had clambered out and came round to see what had happened. She saw the flat tyre, and said, “Now what do you intend to do? I must get home as quickly as possible.”

  Sod you, thought Sadie, and considered telling her to walk. Instead, she dialled the AA rescue service, and explained to Beattie that they would have to wait until an engineer arrived. “Or you could thumb a lift from this lorry coming along,” she said nastily.

  Beattie said nothing would persuade her to ride in a lorry with a strange man, and stood with her arms folded, watching while Sadie delved into the car pockets and slots to find the technical instructions for the car.

  Time passed, and the AA still did not arrive. Sadie wondered if Beattie needed the loo. It had been a long day, and she had stood vigil by the car, waiting for Sadie to finish her shopping.

  As if reading her thoughts, Beattie said that she had noticed a cottage a hundred yards back, and thought she would take a walk to see if she could use their toilet. “Don’t go without me!” she said, and set off at a fast pace. On the way, the bus from town passed her, and the driver waved merrily. She signalled violently, but he did not stop. Probably against the rules, she thought sourly, and trudged on.

  Meanwhile, Sadie had had a call from the AA, apologising for the delay, but saying the engineer was now on his way. From where? Sadie had asked. Birmingham, said the girl.

  Sadie looked in her driving mirror. No sign of Beattie returning, so she must have been lucky. The bus passed by, but Sadie could see that they had not stopped for her. She supposed she had better telephone the Hall and let them know what had happened. Mr. Roussel would be wondering where his housekeeper had got to. She had the number in her head from times when she was working in the shop and had to consult Beattie on their order.

  “Hello? Who is that?” Rose Budd answered, sounding worried. Sadie explained, and Rose said she had to get home to the family, but was sure Mr. Theo would be fine by himself until Beattie returned. He was in a very good mood, she said, and giggled. Sadie was puzzled, but much more worried about her car, and so thanked Rose and ended the call.

  The AA man arrived an hour later. Once there, he fixed the tyre swiftly, and they were once more on their way. Beattie had relapsed into a sullen silence, and Sadie was heartily relieved when she drove round into the stable yard and helped Beattie out of the car.

  As she drove back down the long drive, Sadie reflected on her passenger’s failure to say thank you for the lift. After all, Sadie had been hijacked. Ah well, she thought, that’ll teach her to cadge lifts in future. She smiled to herself. It was obvious the poor woman had not been missed. She remembered the giggle. Had Rose Budd and Mr. Roussel been up to no good? Well, good luck to them, Sadie thought, and as she unpacked her shopping she looked forward to a restoring cup of tea.

  BEATTIE ENTERED THE Hall and went straight to her kitchen. Everything in order. She lifted the kettle and filled it, wondering how she was going to explain the delay to Mr. Theo. He would want to know what made her come back with Sadie Broomfield instead of catching the usual bus. It would have to be a sudden illness, she decided. After all, she had nearly fainted this morning, but she was not sure he had even noticed. She heard his footsteps on the tiled hallway, and looked apprehensively at the door.

  “Ah, there you are!” he said. “Did you have a good time? Met a friend, did you?” He was beaming, and she was so surprised that for once she could think of nothing to say.

  “Well, you’re home now, and needing a cup of tea, I’m sure. No, no,” he added, as she asked if he would like tea, though it was a little late. “No, I have been well looked after,” he said, and chuckled. “I thought I’d have a stroll in the park. Should have a dog again. We must get a dog, Beattie,” he said, and disappeared.

  A stroll in the park? A dog? A nasty, snappy little terrier, no doubt. Beattie sat down at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands. What was going on? The wonderful security she had made for herself at the Hall was falling apart. A tear fell on the scrubbed surface, and she rubbed it away quickly. This would not do. It would take more than a young woman with no conscience to defeat Beatrice Beatty. For a start, she thought, the Budd family were entirely reliant on her for their cushy cottage in Hangman’s Row, and Rose’s husband took his orders from her.

  Then she remembered Theo’s sudden decision to have a word with David Budd this morning. Was this start of a new regime?

  No matter, she said to herself. I’ll fight them all. I’ve fought my way out of tricky situations before, and I’ll do it again. There are one or two things I could mention to Mr. Theo that might make him think twice about undermining my position.

  Feeling more cheerful, she went upstairs to draw curtains in the rooms he would be using later this evening. As she entered his bedroom, she paused. She sniffed, and walked over to the bed. It was rumpled. Not significantly, just the counterpane not quite straight, not as smooth as she had left it this morning. She sniffed again. She had smelled that perfume before, but could not remember where. She perched on the edge of the bed, overcome with dizziness once more.

  Thirty-one

  DEIRDRE SAT AT her dressing table, looking at her reflection. She saw a round face, almost free of aging lines, with cheeks suffused with a healthy colour, and a mouth that had always turned up at the corners, whether she was smiling or not. Her careful coiffure was not as perfect as when she set out that afternoon, but still the curls caught the light and shone a reddish gold, just as her hairdresser had promised.

  “Not bad,” she said aloud, and then burst out laughing all alone in her luxury bedroom. She looked back to the time before Ivy had come to Springfields. Her life had been exemplary, duty bound and boring as hell. Not that she had any idea if hell was boring or not. Perhaps she would go to hell, af
ter this afternoon! This sent her off into further peals of laughter. Who would have thought Theo would still be so good at it?

  Her telephone rang. She knew it would be Ivy, wanting to know how she had got on with gleaning information about Beattie from Theo. She sobered up. The fact was that their fun and games had been so sustained—and they both in middle age!—that only half an hour or so had been left for serious conversation. She had tried, but Theo was not listening. He was much more interested in arranging their next meeting, and in telling her how she had changed everything and he could only thank God that she had come back into his life in time.

  “Deirdre? Are you there?” Ivy’s voice was sharp, and Deirdre quaked.

  “Hello, Ivy. How are you?”

  “What d’you mean, how am I? I’m exactly the same as I was not many hours ago. I’m ringing to see if you got anything interesting out of Mr. Theo. Did he remember Beattie in the early days? How she got the job? References? Where she came from, an’ all that?”

  Deirdre sighed. “Ivy dear,” she said. “I have just had a call from an old lady in town who I visit from time to time. I’m a social services volunteer, you know. She wants me to help her straightaway. I must be off now. We’ll meet on Monday as usual, I hope? Gus will still be in Springfields, I expect. I’ll tell all then,” she added.

  Uncrossing her fingers, she prayed for forgiveness and humming cheerfully went downstairs. She looked at the clock in the hall, and saw that it was little drinkies time. “It’s not that I’ve forgotten you, Bert,” she said aloud. She knew what he would say fondly. A leopardess cannot change her spots.

  KATYA HAD ENJOYED her walk with Miss Beasley this afternoon. They had gone in the opposite direction from the church, and come out of the village into a tunnel of trees. Katya had asked Ivy if she would like to turn around now, but Ivy said she was quite capable of going farther and so they had strolled through the tunnel and out into a sunny lane leading to a farm. A tractor and trailer were parked in the nearby field, and as they watched, a young man heaved sacks of feed out of the trailer and tipped it out for the flock of sheep gathered around him.

  This pastoral scene had made Katya nostalgic for holidays she had spent with her grandparents in rural Poland. Ivy, seeing her expression, had greeted the young farmer with a cheerful good afternoon, hoping he would come over for a word.

  He had introduced himself as David Budd, and asked Katya pleasantly where she had come from and how long she would be staying. While they stood talking, his mobile had rung, and answering it, he had said that yes, he could be home by the time the baby-minder had to go.

  He apologised to them, and said his wife Rose was up at the Hall, and had been kept later than usual. “She keeps the old man company while the housekeeper is at market, you know,” he said. “Seems the old duck has been delayed, and Rose has to stay on a bit longer.” He had excused himself, saying he must get on his way, but invited Katya to drop in anytime and meet Rose and the best toddler in the world, in other words, his son Simon.

  This encounter had, as Ivy hoped, cheered up Katya, and they returned to Springfields in good spirits. After her abortive call to Deirdre, Ivy remembered Rose’s call to her husband, and wondered what had happened to delay Beattie. Then she decided that so long as it was delay, and the housekeeper had not returned early, all would have been well. In any case, Deirdre had sounded happy. Odd, but happy.

  Now she made her way downstairs to supper. Mr. Goodman was waiting at his table, and beckoned her over with a ready smile. She sighed. She would rather have had a quiet meal on her own, but knew that the old boy might well have remembered more about those early days, and the case of the disappearing mother.

  “Good evening, Mr. Goodman,” she said.

  “Good evening, Miss Beasley,” he said, and wondered when it would be safe to call her Ivy.

  Ivy looked round for Gus, but he had not yet come down. “We must keep a seat for Mr. Halfhide,” she said, and felt uncomfortable when she saw the old man’s face fall.

  “Had hoped to have you to myself,” he whispered.

  Ivy was in unfamiliar territory here, and said clumsily that Mr. Halfhide was convalescing and good company was part of his recovery programme. She saw Gus approaching, and with relief waved him to their table. When Gus saw that she was sitting with little Roy Goodman his heart sank. He thought that Ivy should at least have been prepared to defend him from the oldest inhabitant.

  After they had made short work of roast chicken and apple crumble, the three sat on over coffee, chatting idly. Then Roy Goodman said something that made Ivy sit up. “When I was a lad,” he began, “this was a private house, you know. Belonged to one of the Roussel family. They’d got a tenant in. A real recluse, she was. Never went anywhere, and had a woman looking after her. It was after she died that it was sold, and became an old folks’ home.”

  “When was that?” Ivy said, and her tone made Gus look at her enquiringly.

  “Oh, I’m not sure,” Roy said. “I’m so old, I sometimes think I remember Queen Victoria!”

  “Rubbish!” said Ivy, and added that she was not so far behind Mr. Goodman, and she could barely remember her mother telling her about Queen Mary. She looked around the dining room, and said that it must have been a lovely house when it was in private hands. “Did you ever come here, Roy?” she said, apparently casually.

  Roy beamed. “Well, Ivy,” he said, reaching out and touching her hand lightly, “I do vaguely remember that my mother sent me to Springfields to deliver a parcel that had been mistakenly sent to the farm. But the recluse didn’t answer the door. It was the companion. Yes, that’s right, she was called the companion. A quiet woman, she was. Not much seen about the village herself. Just came to the village shop for supplies, and that was about it.”

  “Not to church?” said Ivy.

  Roy shook his head. “Never to my knowledge. And I was in the church choir at that time. Sixpence a time, we got. That’s why we went, I’m afraid, not for the love of the Lord!”

  Gus smiled. He had been thinking about the companion. “I don’t suppose you could possibly remember who the parcel was addressed to?” he said. It was a forlorn hope, but worth asking.

  “Good heavens, no!” Roy said. “I was in a hurry to hand it in and get away. There was something creepy about the place in those days.” He paused, and then said politely, “Um, I wonder if you’d mind telling me why you’re so interested in those old long-gone days?”

  Gus looked at Ivy, and after a second or two she nodded almost imperceptively. Gus got the message and cleared his throat.

  “We should probably have told you before, Roy,” he said, “those old days may be very important to us.” Then he explained about being more or less thrust into matters surrounding the death of Mrs. Blake, and his decision to use his considerable experience in the field of investigation. “Being a stranger to the village, I needed a well-placed local assistant. That’s Ivy here,” he added, patting her hand, which she withdrew instantly. “And then she enlisted her cousin Deirdre at Tawny Wings, who has all the advantages of modern technology at her fingertips. And,” he added, “though it is probably too premature to say so, we are a pretty good team.”

  Roy looked at them in astonishment. “Now I see it,” he said. “But you forgot the person who could be most useful to you.”

  “Well, don’t beat about the bush,” said Ivy. “Who?”

  “Me,” said Roy. “Meet your new team member.” He held out his hand, and neither Ivy nor Gus had the heart to refuse him.

  Thirty-two

  DEIRDRE WANDERED ABOUT the house, smoking a cigarette and being careful not to inhale. She had smoked only in stressful circumstances since Bert died, and was now suffering terrible morning-after pangs of conscience. The euphoria of yesterday had dispersed, and she had taken a hard look at herself. A trollop, her mother would have said. That’s what you are, a trollop. A woman without pride or moral sense. Led astray in middle age by a former lover, who
had never been a reliable character, even in his youth.

  But had they done anybody any harm? Deirdre stopped her perambulating and stubbed out her cigarette. She frowned, and walked over to the grand piano, shining pristinely in the drawing room. It was never played. Tuned regularly, but never played. She had fallen for the sales talk: “The ultimate fashion statement for your home,” the advertisement had promised. At one time she’d hoped her girls would learn to play, but they had preferred the guitar. Much easier, they had said.

  Now it was a suitable surface for expensively framed photographs of the family. She picked up the one of Bert and herself outside the Palace. He’d been so proud of her MBE. He had really deserved to have an award himself. His work with misguided youth in the town was well-known, but only she knew how much it had cost him. All those evenings spent in draughty community halls, when he would much rather have been at home watching the telly with her.

  “Bert,” she said seriously. “I don’t suppose you could possibly let me know somehow whether I’m going astray, could you? Please?” Her eyes filled with tears, and she stared hopefully at the photograph. What! She rubbed her eyes fiercely. Oh, my God, there it was again. Bert winked. He definitely winked!

  She rushed to the window with the photograph and looked again. No, it must have been a mistake. He looked proudly out of the photograph, as before. She sighed. Wishful thinking, she supposed. She replaced Bert, and opened the garden door. The sky was overcast, and a damp mist filled the garden. Almost autumnal, Deirdre thought. That’s what we are, she thought miserably. In the autumn of our lives.

  “Deirdre!” A sharp voice interrupted her thoughts. “Have you been smoking?”

  It was Ivy of course. Who else would Bert send along to accuse her of being sorry for herself? Deirdre laughed aloud, and did a couple of skips back into the house.