The Night She Died

by Dorothy Simpson

  Then she turned to Thanet. ‘And now,’ she said quietly, ‘perhaps you’d tell me what all this is about.’

  She listened in silence as Thanet explained in much the same terms as he had to her husband, then said, ‘Well, I was at evening class, like Rodge says. I left here about a quarter to seven, left the class as soon as it ended at nine and got back here about a quarter past.’

  ‘How did you go? By car? Bus?’

  ‘By car.’

  So, Thanet thought with sinking heart, Edna Pocock could still be his quarry. ‘You can confirm that your wife arrived home around nine-fifteen?’ he said.

  Pocock nodded. ‘Around then. It was well before The Pacemakers ended, anyway.’

  And that was at nine-thirty. ‘You can’t be more precise?’

  ‘No I bloody well can’t. And if you …’ He glanced down at the restraining hand Edna put on his sleeve, took a deep breath and continued in a tight, hard voice, ‘If Edna says a quarter past nine, a quarter past nine it was.’

  He’d have to leave it there. Thanet heaved himself awkwardly out of his deck chair, apologised for disturbing their Sunday afternoon and left.

  The interview had made him feel uncomfortable, guilty almost, and angry with himself for feeling so. At the traffic lights in the High Street he stalled his engine, grated a gear change. He swore.

  There were times when he hated being a policeman.

  14

  By the time Thanet had finished the reports on the day’s interviews he had had enough. He tidied his desk and headed for home, feeling in need of the comfort Joan’s company would bring him.

  Tomorrow there was much to be done. First he would send a team to make enquiries at Maddison House, to see if anyone could be found to confirm or disprove Alice Giddy’s claim that she had spent Tuesday evening at home. Also, enquiries would have to be made at the Technical College. He would have to contact Edna Pocock’s pottery teacher, check that she had indeed attended her class that evening and, if necessary, get a complete list of the members of the class and question them all, find out if any of them saw where she went when the session ended.

  It certainly seemed that his five suspects had been reduced to two. Peake dead, Plummer in hospital, Pocock alibied by the children. Thanet believed them. He wouldn’t have put it past the elder boy to lie on behalf of his foster father, but he certainly couldn’t believe that Melly had done so. He was pretty certain she had been unaware of the significance of her contribution. No, when Julie was killed, Pocock had been sitting at home in front of the television set. Thanet only wished that the same could be said of his wife.

  Was it possible that that kind, motherly woman could have killed twice? Reluctantly, he had to admit that it was. It was common knowledge that in defence of her children even the mildest of women could become a tigress and in Edna Pocock maternal love was stronger than in most. If she had thought that Julie could destroy the secure world that Edna and her husband had so painstakingly built up for those children … yes, Edna Pocock was still very much in the running.

  As indeed was Alice Giddy. Now there was someone whom he could very well imagine a murderess. Unlike Edna, who would kill from passion, Alice would set about it in a cool and calculated manner, making sure that the risks she took were minimal. There was no doubt about it, of the two he very much hoped that she would prove to be the guilty one.

  It was quite wrong of him, of course, to hope anything of the sort. His job was to see that justice was done and if he didn’t very much like what his investigations turned up, that was just too bad. For that matter, even if he did find out which one of them was guilty, he couldn’t at the moment see how he was going to prove it.

  Thanet grimaced and pulled up behind an ice-cream van parked at the side of the road. He’d buy some choc ices to take home.

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ said Joan, receiving the newspaper-wrapped parcel with a kiss. ‘In the kitchen to eat these, don’t you think?’

  Thanet watched Ben and Bridget as they ate the ices. Most of Ben’s seemed to end up on chin, hands or bib, whereas Bridget approached hers fastidiously, taking neat, incisive bites and holding it carefully by the wrapper. Thanet thought of the Pocock children earlier in the afternoon, of their wariness and fear when a stranger arrived. Sprig might feel shy, but never threatened. She and Ben were secure in their little world and please God they would stay that way. Once, Julie Holmes must have felt just as safe in hers and then, without warning, it had disintegrated. She had lost father, home and confidence in other people in one fell swoop. Thanet was convinced that, whoever the murderer was, Julie had known her as a friend of her mother’s. It was scarcely surprising that she had grown up wary, unable to commit herself to others for fear of being hurt. A wave of protective passion swept through him and he picked Sprig up, choc ice and all, and hugged her.

  ‘Darling, look at your jacket!’ Joan rinsed a cloth in cold water and began to sponge at the smear on his lapel. ‘What’s the matter?’ she said softly.

  He shook his head, pulled a face. ‘Just this damned case.’ But he knew that he was telling only half the truth, that what was really upsetting him was the thought of the Pocock children. Damaged as they already were, how much more so would they be if Mrs Pocock proved to be the murderer? Was the case, which had begun so many years ago with another damaged child, Julie, to end by ruining more young lives? And was he to be the instrument of destruction?

  Joan was chatting on now about something that had happened earlier in the day. He tried to concentrate. Someone, he gathered, had asked her to do something and she hadn’t been able to say yes because of the children. And then this someone had made Joan feel thoroughly guilty, had implied that Joan had refused simply because she couldn’t be bothered to help.

  ‘Wretched woman!’ Thanet said, indignant on Joan’s behalf.

  ‘But she made me feel so awful … honestly, people who haven’t got children just don’t seem to take them into account, don’t realise how one has to arrange things around them, especially when they’re little like … What’s the matter?’

  ‘What you said, just then. Say it again.’

  Joan repeated her complaint.

  Thanet stared at her, frowning. There was something in what she had said that was important for him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. What was it?

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’ Joan was looking puzzled. ‘Don’t you agree with what I was saying?’

  ‘What? Oh yes. Yes, of course, love. It’s just that I …’ he shook his head. ‘It’s no good. It won’t come. Something you said rang a bell, but I can’t think why.’

  Joan picked Ben up and began to wipe away the smears of chocolate. ‘You know what’s the matter with your daddy?’ she said to the baby. ‘He’s been working too hard. There.’ She set Ben down on the floor again, handing him his favourite toy, a very noisy rattle, and came across to put her arm around Thanet’s shoulders and drop a kiss on his forehead. ‘And you know my remedy for overwork? A nice quiet evening doing nothing. Watch television, listen to music, let your mind go blank, recuperate.’

  Thanet leaned his head against her breasts. ‘That’s easier said than done, love.’

  ‘I know that, of course I do. But we can at least try.’

  So they did. But all through the evening Thanet was aware of a steadily increasing pressure at the back of his mind. Deliberately he held it at bay, wanting Joan to believe that her therapy was working, and it was not until they were in bed and her steady breathing told him that she was asleep, that he allowed himself at last to return to the question that had been niggling away at him all evening. What was it, in what Joan had said, that had been significant for him? He tried to recall her exact words. ‘People who haven’t got children just don’t seem to take them into account.’

  And then, seemingly out of nowhere, he heard Lineham’s voice saying, ‘Why should anyone start to wonder whether the child had witnessed the murder?’

  Only someone who
did take children into account would have done so.

  Thanet lay rigid, staring at the ceiling, willing himself not to disturb Joan by jumping out of bed and beginning to pace restlessly about the room.

  There was only one person who, twenty years ago, would have taken little Julie Parr into account, and that was Edna Pocock. She knew the Parrs, might well have babysat for them. Even then she had been, Inspector Low had said, a woman who loved children.

  Thanet thought back, trying to project himself into her mind at the time of Annabel’s murder. Edna Pocock had been expecting a child. She had already had more than one miscarriage and must have been hoping, passionately, that this time her pregnancy would go smoothly. Then she discovers that her husband is chasing Annabel. What if she had taken him to task about it? Suppose they had quarrelled, that Edna had become hysterical, that she had even flown at him and he, in defending himself had struck back, causing her miscarriage? How would she have felt lying there in bed, her hopes shattered once again, full of bitterness and anger against her husband and against the woman who had been the cause of it all? Might she not have decided to confront Annabel, to tell her what she had done, to make her realise her responsibility for the death of Edna’s unborn child?

  Thanet could see it all: Edna, unhinged by grief, laying her plans, seizing the opportunity when it came; hurrying through the foggy night to Annabel’s house, being admitted by the unsuspecting girl, following her up to the studio. Then would come the accusation. Annabel must have said or done something which snapped the last thread of Edna’s control. Edna seizes the piece of quartz, strikes Annabel in a frenzy and then departs, unaware that all the time, in the half-curtained alcove at the far end of the room, Julie, rigid and silent with terror, has been watching.

  Then would come the aftermath of the murder, the news of David Parr’s death, of Jennifer having been the one to find Annabel’s body. It would not have taken Edna long, with her child-orientated mind, to begin to wonder where Julie had been while her mother was at the hospital. Discreet enquiries might have led her to the inescapable conclusion that Jennifer had gone to the studio that night because Annabel had been looking after Julie, and Jennifer’s hasty departure from the village would have confirmed what by now Edna might have suspected, that Julie might well have witnessed the murder.

  She must have waited in terror at first for Julie to identify her. When it hadn’t happened she must slowly have begun to recover her confidence, to think that even if Julie had been in Annabel’s house, she couldn’t have seen what had happened.

  Years later, abandoning hope of having children of her own she must have conceived the plan of being a foster mother. Her husband, perhaps shocked out of his infidelities by the consequences of his pursuit of Annabel and anxious to make amends, must have fallen in with her plans. All had gone smoothly until the evening of the Private View. There Edna sees Julie, her mother’s double, and wonders if Julie might have recognised her. She had to find out: did Julie witness the murder and if so, has she now recognised Edna as the murderer? All the old terrors of discovery are reawakened. Now she has far more to lose and she cannot afford to induge in foolish optimism. She must find out for sure.

  So as not to arouse her husband’s suspicions Edna decides to go and see Julie on her pottery class evening, Tuesday. But first she has to find out Julie’s address. This might not have been easy and would perhaps account for the lapse of a fortnight between the evening of the Private View and Julie’s murder. She goes to Gladstone Road, finds Julie hysterical after the quarrel with Kendon. There is a struggle and Julie is stabbed. Edna runs, the pattern having repeated itself. On neither occasion did she set out with murder in mind, on each circumstances combined to cause her to commit it.

  A lot of this was speculation again, of course, nevertheless it fitted, in its broad outline, with all the known facts.

  Except … Thanet scowled up at the ceiling, shifted restlessly. Joan turned over, murmured something in her sleep and he froze, keeping quite still until the even pattern of her breathing had been re-established.

  Except that the time element did not fit.

  If his story was true, Kendon had left Julie between eight-forty and eight-forty-five. If night school had not ended until nine, it would have been at least ten or a quarter past by the time Edna arrived, having parked her car somewhere out of sight (two points to check up on: what make of car did she drive, had anyone in the Gladstone Road area seen it that night?). By then Julie would surely have calmed down, have taken her coat off and put that carving knife away?

  Unless Edna had left her class early? A pottery class was not like an academic session. People would be moving about all the time, working to different schedules. If Edna had made sure that she finished early on Tuesday, had left before the class ended …? More checking.

  And, at the end of it, no real satisfaction, if he were proved right. Those children …

  Thanet spent a restless night.

  15

  Thanet arived at the office next day with none of the eager anticipation he usually felt at this stage of an enquiry. His quarry might be in sight, but the hunt had lost its savour. He saw no joy whatsoever in the prospect of tracking down Edna Pocock.

  First, however, he had to determine whether or not Alice Giddy could definitely be eliminated as a suspect and he turned to the batch of reports which Baker had written on his enquiries at Maddison House in connection with Parrish. In the hours before dawn Thanet had had a faint recollection of something that he had read in one of them …

  At this point Lineham walked in.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ said Thanet.

  Lineham looked terrible, like a rag doll whose stuffing had gone limp.

  ‘Home,’ said Thanet, crossing the room, taking him by the shoulders and propelling him firmly towards the door. ‘Bed. And I don’t want to see you again until you’re properly fit.’

  ‘But sir …’

  ‘Home,’ repeated Thanet. ‘What are you trying to do, start a flu epidemic? In any case, what use do you think you’d be here, in that state?’ Seeing Lineham’s face, Thanet relented. ‘Oh look, Mike, I know how you feel, having to duck out at this stage, but you really have no choice, have you? Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘In case he told you not to come back to work, I suppose. Well, call him. You’ll be back all the sooner if you get proper treatment.’

  When Lineham had made his reluctant exit Thanet returned to the sheaf of reports on Maddison House. Of course, when Baker had been sent out there he had simply been concerned to find out whether or not anyone had seen Parrish either entering or leaving the building on the evening of the murder. All the same, Thanet was sure … Ah yes, here it was.

  Mrs Barret of Flat 27 had not seen or heard anything relevant to Baker’s enquiry as she had spent the evening watching television first of all at home and then in the flat of a neighbour.

  There had been four doors on Alice Giddy’s landing, Thanet remembered. Hers, Flat 26, had been the second from the left. She should, then, be Mrs Barret’s next-door neighbour. Baker reported that the occupants of Flats 26 and 28 had been out when he called. Presumably he had not returned to them later because he had been called off the enquiry before he could do so; when Phyllis Penge, Parrish’s mistress, had confirmed Parrish’s alibi, Thanet had not considered further enquiries necessary.

  So, which neighbour had Mrs Barret spent the evening with? Alice Giddy or the occupant of Flat 28?

  Thanet picked up the telephone. ‘D.C.Baker in?’

  Baker, he learned, had just gone out, would not be back until late morning.

  Thanet swore under his breath. ‘Send him up the minute he gets back, will you?’

  He could either ring or go to see Mrs Barret himself, but he would prefer to talk to Baker first. He didn’t want to risk alerting Alice Giddy any further until he was more sure of his ground. He would wait.

  Glancing at
his watch he saw that by now the Administrative Staff should have arrived at the Technical College. He checked the telephone number and dialled.

  Edna Pocock’s pottery teacher, a Mrs Caroly, apparently worked at the College on only two evenings a week. The secretary had no idea whether Mrs Caroly had a day-time job. There was an address and telephone number, however, and she gave them to Thanet. She could supply a list of the names and addresses of the class members and Thanet arranged that someone would call around to pick it up within the next half an hour.

  He sent Carson off on this errand, then tried Mrs Caroly’s number. There was no reply. Another man was despatched to find out where she was and when she would be available.

  Now what? Thanet rang through for some coffee, stood up and moved restlessly across to the window. Outside lay the promise of another beautiful spring day. A breeze had sprung up and fluffy white clouds promenaded across the sky. The traffic had thinned now that the morning rush was over, and the people on the streets were moving in a more leisurely manner: young mothers with a pram and a toddler in tow, old men with no object but to find somewhere warm and quiet where they might pass the dragging hours. Watching one of them Thanet was invaded by melancholy. Is that where life led? Was that how he would end up, thirty years from now?

  A young constable arrived bearing Thanet’s coffee.

  Thanet turned away from the window, sat down again. The coffee was lukewarm and he grimaced in disgust.

  A knock at the door and Mallard came in. ‘My,’ he said, ‘aren’t we cheerful this morning!’

  ‘Hullo Doc,’ Thanet said. ‘Want some coffee?’

  ‘If that’s a specimen of what’ll be produced if I say yes,’ said Mallard peering into Thanet’s cup, ‘then no, thank you. I have too much respect for my digestive system.’

  ‘I think we can do better than this,’ Thanet said, picking up the telephone.

  ‘How’s the back?’ Mallard asked, while they waited for fresh coffee.