by Cathy Ace
As they ambled across the road Glover and Stanley compared notes.
‘Anything useful or notable in the laundry room or bedroom, Stanley?’ asked Glover hurriedly.
Stanley, a woman of few words, answered succinctly, ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, sir,’ then added with an eye-roll, ‘well, not for that type, anyway. The bed was poorly made, but I suspect he doesn’t even know how to do that much for himself.’
Glover nodded his agreement. ‘Nothing in the bathroom either, except enough Vim to kill a horse. But she didn’t die of Vim, she somehow got nicotine into her system, and I didn’t see any phials of that lying about anywhere. The kitchen seemed to be clean, too, in our sense of the word.’
They’d arrived at the front door to Mary Roberts’ house; Glover spotted the remnants of movement in the net curtains at the window, and the door was opened before he had a chance to knock. Mrs Roberts was a slim, angular woman in her early fifties, with chestnut hair suspiciously free of grey, and a liking for a shade of lipstick Glover thought had gone out of fashion in the Forties – it was the most vivid red he could remember seeing since they’d done away with the old telephone boxes. When she smiled, Mary Roberts looked as though she’d like to eat a person. Whole. Glover suspected it was the redness of her lips and the strange length of her teeth that made him conjure up the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood, and he couldn’t shake the image as he took the woman’s hand; her long fingers wound around Glover’s, and her talon-like red fingernails dug into his flesh.
‘Detective Inspector Glover and Detective Sergeant Stanley, ma’am,’ said Glover. He knew a certain type loved to be ma’am-ed, so he laid it on thick. ‘We understand from Mr Kitts that you were friendly with his wife, Mrs Emily Kitts, and we wondered if we might have a few words?’ Glover knew that sometimes the less he said, the better.
‘But of course, inspector, would you both like to come in? I’m sure we’d be more comfortable in the parlor than on the doorstep.’
As Glover recalled that ‘parlor’ had been his own mother’s preferred term for the largely unused front room of their tiny family home, Mary Roberts ushered the detectives into her version of heaven on earth. As in the Kitts’ home everything was spotless and gleaming, and the smell of deodorizing chemicals hung in the air. But there the similarity ended; this house was a symphony of monochromatic beige upon beige, all presumably in the best possible taste, and all probably horrifically expensive. It was like seeing the before and after in a home make-over show – with the Kittses favoring the floral, flounced before, and the Roberts house showing what ‘good design’ could achieve in essentially the same space. Glover had felt overwhelmed by detail and pattern in the last house, now he was under-whelmed and uncomfortable – everything seemed to be bland, yet sharp and angular. Even the chairs upon which he and Stanley perched, rather than sat, seemed to be inadequately upholstered.
When Mary Roberts thrust a square cup sitting atop a square saucer into his hands, Glover wasn’t surprised.
‘Now then,’ she gushed, as she offered a square plate of custard creams, ‘tell me everything.’
Glover placed his tea upon the rectangular glass table in front of him and smiled. ‘Well ma’am, we were rather hoping you could tell us something. We’re trying to get a clearer picture of Mrs Kitts’ life and habits. You understand, of course – sudden death, and all that.’ He beamed his special smile at her, and she flashed her frightening teeth back at him.
‘Of course I understand. I mean, we all watch the telly and that, don’t we? But it wasn’t such a surprise, you know. She was never a well woman; she was always complaining about her indigestion, and her back, and her head. She said it was a miracle she got out of bed some days.’
Glover found it interesting that the husband and the friend should tell two such different stories about Emily Kitts’ health; he wondered which one was telling the truth.
‘Of course,’ clucked Mary Roberts, as if she’d read Glover’s mind, ‘she never told John anything about anything. She said she never wanted him to worry about her. But she wasn’t a well woman. They say it was her heart. Is that right?’
It was clear to Glover that Mary Roberts wanted to be the one with the news in the area – he could almost feel the net curtain brigade twitching with excitement, knowing they’d get the inside story from Mary the minute he and Stanley left her house.
Play it safe, Glover, he told himself. ‘Well, at this stage I can’t say too much, of course; we’re just trying to get a fuller picture of Mrs Kitts’ routine. Who she saw, where she went, what her habits might have been. That sort of thing.’
Not a mention of ‘Might someone have wanted to murder her?’ or ‘Was she in the state of mind to take her own life?’
Mary Roberts’ teeth gleamed. ‘Emily was quite the local character, Inspector Glover.’ She laughed lightly, then added in a more somber tone, ‘It’s why we’ll all miss her so. You see, you could tell the time by Emily; if it was ten o’clock on a Monday morning, she’d be hanging out the washing; unless it was raining, then she’d use her dryer. If it was nine o’clock on a Wednesday morning, she’d be off to the shop to get her baking supplies, and if I was so much as two minutes late for our ten thirty appointment on a Thursday morning she’d sulk through our coffee and cakes until I’d apologized at least three times.’
‘How interesting,’ Glover responded. ‘Did she have many friends?’ he asked.
‘Oh no, Emily didn’t have friends – she just had people who served her; you know, the people she met in the shops. I was the only “real” person she had anything to do with. She and John have been over here for dinner a few times, and I’ve been there to dine too, of course, and I’d go to hers every Thursday, but that was it. The whole of the rest of her life revolved around her house, and making John look good. Emily didn’t have time for anything that took her attention away from those priorities. And of the two, I’d say the house was more important to her. Yes, what people thought of her house, then what people thought of poor John. Though, you see, no one ever really saw her house. So there’s that. I don’t think she actually cared about John, as such, just what people thought about the way she turned him out for work every day, and how he looked and acted when they did the shopping in town at the weekend. She dressed him like he was a doll, you know. I heard her telling him once to change before he came down for dinner one evening – she’d laid out all his clothes for him and instructed him on how to dress as though he were three years old.’
Glover had suspected Emily Kitts had controlled her husband; maybe this was an insight into just how far she had taken that role. Might her cowed husband have fought back by somehow getting her to take a lethal dose of poison? Might he have sought his revenge for years of being browbeaten, and killed to obtain his freedom?
‘Does Mr Roberts know the Kittses too? Might we have a word with him?’ asked Glover.
Mary Roberts studied her fingernails. ‘There hasn’t been a Mr Roberts for about two years now, dear. He was a smoker and a drinker, and it finally got him – had a heart attack one morning and that was that. Sixty-one and didn’t look a day over fifty-five they all said. A good-looking corpse he made. We even had an open viewing at the funeral directors’. He’d have liked that, Harry; always very proud of his looks was my Harry. Mind you – they got him into trouble more than once. But I’m sure you know what I mean, being a good-looking man yourself.’ Her expression had changed from sad to coquettish, and Glover tried to stop thinking all the better to eat you with as he smiled politely across a sea of beige at the woman with the frightening teeth and the fetish for right angles.
‘So Mr and Mrs Kitts took you under their wing, so to speak?’ Glover tried to keep the conversation going.
‘Not really, dear, it was more the other way around; I felt sorry for him, and she was tolerable, I suppose. She might have kept a clean house and baked a nice Victoria sponge, but it was all about Emily, Emily, Emily
if you ask me. She’d probably have been happier if John hadn’t been there messing up her house.’
Trying a slightly different tack, Glover asked, ‘Do you happen to know if Mrs Kitts was taking any medications?’
‘She told me she’d come off the pill last year,’ volunteered Mary. ‘I don’t know why she was even on it, if you know what I mean, but she did make a big deal of coming off it. Went straight into menopause, of course, and I got all the gory details. I know she never told John about any of that stuff, because she thought it was all something to hide under the carpet. Goodness knows what century she thought she was living in, but there you are. More tea?’
Glover declined, not having touched his first cup, and asked, ‘Was she maybe taking something to help her through the change?’
Mary Roberts sipped her tea and chuckled. ‘Ah, “The Change”, these men are so sweet, aren’t they?’ She winked at Stanley. ‘You lot don’t know what to say when it involves anything below a woman’s waist, do you? Well, not when you’re in polite company anyway. But, to answer your question, I believe she used sage tea to help with the flushes, but that would be it. She tried to get me to drink the stuff once, but I told her to forget it; I’ve heard it’s disgustingly bitter. Besides, I’m well past all that now; I put all that behind me at a very early age.’ Again, the dead woman’s neighbor grinned alarmingly at Glover; he did his best to ignore it.
‘So you don’t know of anything out of the ordinary that might have impacted Mrs Kitts’ health just before she died?’ he pressed.
Mary Roberts reflected for a moment then answered bluntly, ‘Not a thing – she was a miserable, controlling woman, but she wasn’t any more ill than she usually was. I suppose she’d been looking a bit peaky for a few days; I thought it was just one of those down weeks she got, but maybe it was more. Perhaps I should have paid more attention when I saw her sweeping the front step on Monday, looking a bit pale, but I didn’t. And that was the last time I saw her. Very sad.’
Mary Roberts didn’t seem to be full of regret, but Glover had to admit she seemed pretty genuine, and possibly accurate, in her assessment of Emily Kitts’ character. As he and Stanley walked across the street to their car he had a suspicion the telephones would be singing along Plasmarl Park Terrace for some hours to come, but he was beginning to feel there wasn’t much more he could do that evening. Not without something else to go on from Dr Souza in any case.
As the detectives were opening the car’s doors a woman called to them from some way along the street. She rushed toward them. ‘Excuse me, are you the police?’
Fearing some sort of emergency, Glover approached the woman rapidly. ‘Indeed we are the police, can I help you at all?’
‘Are you here about Emily?’
‘May I ask who you are, ma’am?’ asked Glover politely.
‘I’m Beryl Hughes, from the shop at the end of the road. And I want to know if you’re here about Emily.’ The short, stocky woman looked cross for some reason, as though she was about to live up to the promise – or threat – of her red hair.
‘Well, it’s difficult for me to comment, Ms Hughes, but I can tell you we have to undertake certain enquiries in the case of all sudden deaths in the home.’
‘Sudden death in the home, my eye!’ snapped the woman. ‘We all know she came down with a heart attack. Good God, man, she phoned for the ambulance herself and they told me that’s what she’d had before they left.’
The red hair must have been natural, surmised Glover, or else this woman had colored it to match her temper.
Beryl Hughes continued her diatribe at the top of her voice. ‘Just ’cos her doctor was on holiday doesn’t mean you can go hounding that poor man. A locum not signing the death certificate? Have you ever heard of anything so stupid? And don’t you go believing a word that one over there tells you; she was over in Emily’s house herself on Tuesday morning, likely as not telling Emily what for, as usual. Dropped in on the off-chance, she did. Who does that? Just dropping in is so rude. She couldn’t leave Emily alone. Couldn’t leave him alone either – I reckon she fancies him, see, but then I dare say she fancies anything in trousers. Give you the eye, did she?’ She tutted in disgust. ‘I bet she did – she’s always flirting with my husband, and with me there in the shop too. She’s got some front that woman, I’ll give her that. She’s on the prowl for certain I’d say – you watch, she’ll be all over poor John now he’s on his own.’
Glover never ceased to be amazed at the amount of vitriol that seemed to lie just below the surface of every community. He didn’t want this woman to make a scene for all to hear, with him at the heart of it, but he did want to find out what she might know, so he used his quiet, calming voice when he replied. ‘As I said, Mrs Hughes, whenever there is an unexpected death and there’s no primary healthcare provider able to sign a death certificate, we have to conduct certain standard enquiries. Under such circumstances it would, of course, be normal to talk things over with the spouse, and anyone who they felt had been close to the deceased. Do you think that would include you, Mrs Hughes? Were you close to Emily Kitts?’
The woman’s fire seemed to be somewhat quenched. ‘No, not really,’ came the much quieter response. ‘I mean, she’d come into the shop a few times a week and we’d talk a bit, like you do, but I wouldn’t say I really knew her – not like a person, you know? But John, now, he’d always stop for a real chat when he came in at night for his newspaper. Bless him, he’s a hard-working man, you know, and ever so nice. I just think he should be allowed to grieve at a time like this. He must be feeling it very bad. They were like lovebirds, he always said.’
Glover noted the point she’d made and asked, ‘How do you happen to know that Mrs Roberts visited Mrs Kitts on Tuesday morning? I understand it was their normal routine to meet on a Thursday, not a Tuesday.’
The woman raised her eyebrows and pulled Glover close to her. ‘Emily came in to buy some biscuits on Tuesday morning. Now there was a surprise; Emily always baked all her own stuff, but it seemed that woman had just strolled across the road and as good as invited herself in for a cup of coffee, if you like. Well, of course Emily didn’t have anything to offer her, hence the dash to my shop for some emergency biscuits. I don’t know why the Roberts woman was there, but you’re right, Thursday was their day as a rule. Rude thing that she is; dropping in, my eye. Sticking her nose into something that didn’t concern her, more likely.’
Glover thanked the shopkeeper, and promised to keep her in mind if he wanted to know anything more about what went on in Plasmarl Park Terrace, as she assured him she would be the one who would know. He didn’t doubt her for one minute, and said as much to Stanley as the two finally pulled away from the kerb and drove toward HQ.
As Stanley negotiated the early evening traffic, Glover popped one of his favorite strong peppermints into his mouth and crunched loudly. Stanley knew her boss was concentrating, she also knew better than to interrupt with questions or observations. After a few minutes, when the peppermint had been decimated, Glover spoke.
‘So it seems we have an uncomplaining, caring childhood sweetheart who’s left behind a bereft husband, and a moaning, controlling biddy from hell who’s not got a friend in the world . . . and they are both the same woman. I wonder which one was the real Emily Kitts? The husband believes she doted on him, the “friend” thinks she treated him like a child. And the friend lied about seeing Emily alive for the last time on Monday – though we only have it second-hand that she was actually at the Kitts’ house on Tuesday. The shopkeeper seems to think he’s the one we should feel sorry for, and that the Roberts woman is after him for herself. The women in this man’s world all seem to think he needs looking after in some way. Why do you think that is, Stanley?’
‘I think some men just bring that out in women,’ replied Stanley in her matter of fact way.
‘True, and quite profound, Stanley,’ agreed Glover pensively, then he added, ‘I didn’t
see it myself, did you? He seemed a pretty inoffensive chap, not the good-looking type with the puppy-dog eyes or anything like that. Now that I could understand. But him? Just a bit of a nondescript type. Horrible hands – damp and clingy. Don’t know how he’ll keep the house up with her gone. Pretty clear she did everything there. But that’s not our problem. Our problem is: did she jump, or was she pushed, so to speak.’
‘Nothing to suggest she took her own life – no note, no pattern of depression. Even if we believe the friend about the menopause thing, they don’t all go around topping themselves, do they, sir? Menopausal women, I mean,’ added Stanley.
‘Delicately put,’ replied Glover, ‘for someone in their thirties.’
‘And if she was going to do away with herself,’ continued Stanley, seemingly oblivious to Glover’s barbed comment, ‘why use something as elaborate as nicotine poison? Surely an overdose of something you can buy in the chemists’ would have done just as well? Nicotine is a pretty exotic way of doing it, wouldn’t you say, sir?’
‘Well, exotic is one word for it, Stanley,’ agreed Glover, ‘and I think you’re right about the suicide theory. I never thought it was likely to be the case anyway, given the poison, as you say. So it’s good old “foul play” then, eh?’
‘Seems to be, sir,’ replied Stanley. She dared to add, ‘Any thoughts yet, sir?’
Glover smiled across at his subordinate. ‘You know better than that by now, Stanley. Cards close to the chest, that’s me. But what about you? Let’s see what you think.’
Stanley shifted behind the wheel. ‘I think it all hangs on how the poison got into her system, sir. Kitts wouldn’t have had the chance to give her anything specific to eat or drink that day; he was at work – Wilks just texted to confirm that. But it could have been something he’d left in the house for her to suck on, you know, something that would dissolve like boiled sweets or something – no problem with access there. He could have put something into the herb tea mix maybe? That way might it have absorbed into the stomach lining and not shown up in the stomach contents? But motive? Well, Wilks says there’s no huge life insurance policy on the dead woman, and they seem to get by on his income quite well. They have a savings account with a couple of grand in it, but that’s it. It seems to me he’ll lose out by her death, especially if we go with the “lovebirds” theory. It could have been the Roberts woman – sounds like she lied about being there that day, but I can’t imagine the motive. It can’t be because she thought he was a catch, surely? And it doesn’t seem as though anyone else ever went into the house, if we believe Kitts himself, and what the Roberts woman said. Maybe the Hughes woman in the shop hated Emily’s guts and poisoned the biscuits?’