by Clare Curzon
‘No need to disturb her. Have you had trouble of that kind? Being evacuated, I mean.’
‘A couple of months back there was a chemical fire and everyone had to leave for a couple of nights. She’s still upset about it.’
‘It’s nothing to do with her, except that we really need you back at Fordham Manor. Is it possible for you to return with me?’
‘I was due back there tonight, but I haven’t yet found anyone to relieve me here. Auntie’s quite helpless, you see. I rang the Manor to get extended leave, but the storm must have brought the lines down. Is there much damage?’
By now Z had eased the woman into a retreat to the kitchen, from where they could still hear reproachful complaints from the front room and an insistent banging on floorboards.
‘You’d better sit down,’ the DS advised. ‘I’m afraid the news is really bad.’
Alma Pavitt listened in growing horror, clutching at her throat with both hands. ‘Oh my God, that’s awful. Awful. I can’t believe …’
While she partially recovered, Z made tea. Women’s work, she thought, echoing the unknown words Yeadings had sardonically used of perhaps the most hated job that befell the police.
‘Universal panacea,’ Alma Pavitt said wryly as she accepted her cup. ‘Thank you. I’d better take Auntie’s through and explain. She’ll never keep quiet otherwise.’ Already she was displaying her practical side. Well, it wasn’t as though the Hoads were family.
She was away some ten minutes. The seesawing of voices, hers low, the other a protesting wail, came wordlessly through the partition wall. Z used the interval to phone the local social services and explain the position. Even before Alma Pavitt returned, Z’s mobile rang and a male voice assured her someone was already on the way.
‘I doubt we can cover the old lady’s care at home,’ he said, ‘but we’ll try and get her into a hostel where they’ll take good care of her. You can leave it with us, Sergeant. What a terrible business at Fordham. We heard about it on the midday news.’
Apparently these two women had not. Z commented on that when Alma Pavitt came back.
‘Auntie won’t have the news on. Not since Iraq,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t allowed to turn it on until Neighbours. She lives for that and Coronation Street.’
‘I see.’ Z explained about the arrangements social services were making.
‘The old dear won’t like it one bit. Not at first. But it’s better than anything I could have fixed up. I’d better go and pack a bag for her. We’ll leave telling her until someone arrives. Meanwhile, could you go and have a word with her? She’ll want to know the far end of everything that happened at the Manor. I’m afraid, now she’s over the first shock, she’ll have quite a morbid relish for details.’
Zyczynski managed to confine herself to the outline permitted to the press and quickly passed on to enquire about the circumstances of the broken leg. Mrs Bellinger, by now delighted with her visitor, was even more keen to share her own experience: a fall from her bike, no less, almost under the wheels of a panting juggernaut.
‘I might have been killed,’ she said proudly. ‘It happened Friday about teatime, when the first shower started and the roads were all slithery. There’s nothing wrong with my bike, as I told them at the hospital. The doctor said I didn’t ought to be still riding the thing at my age, but I’m pretty fit otherwise. Just a twinge or two of angina sometimes. Actually, more than riding, I mostly just push the bike and hang my shopping from the handlebars. It helps me get along. Only on Friday I was running late to go and pick up the laundry. Fridays they close early, you see.’
Z did, and stifled a sigh. ‘You’re lucky that your niece could drop everything and come to help.’
‘Oh, it was already arranged. She was coming anyway. Providential, you might say. Got me straight out of that awful hospital once they’d set the leg and done me plaster.’
News that she was again to be moved on roused frantic protests, but these quietened on the arrival of a briskly assured woman who was to see to everything and offered transport in an ambulance-type van with an electrically operated rear loading ramp. Auntie was trundled out importantly in a wheelchair on loan from the Red Cross.
‘Just you wait,’ the comfortably plump woman confided to her. ‘They’re really going to spoil you when you get there.’
Alma Pavitt locked up the house and handed over the key. ‘I’m sorry, Auntie, that I have to go. But you can see there’s nothing else for it.’
They watched the van draw away, and Alma Pavitt turned with a grimace to Zyczynski. ‘Now for the really grim bit. I’m ready to go, if you are.’
Chapter Five
‘Did you drive down?’ Zyczynski had asked while Alma Pavitt was collecting her things.
‘I’d meant to, but the car had to go in for servicing. Nothing serious: the motor for the windscreen wipers suddenly went kaput. Imagine getting caught in that storm if I’d ploughed on without!’
‘So perhaps you’d like a lift back?’
‘I’d hoped you might offer.’ Her grin was brilliant. A flash of very white teeth. ‘I wasn’t sure that was permitted, apart from carting off suspects.’
‘There’s no ban. And we even have moments when we think everyone’s a suspect. It’s my own car anyway. Such as it is.’
‘What’s wrong with it? Am I risking my life in accepting?’ As she laughed, her voice rose and Zyczynski recognised the foreign lilt she’d caught before. The woman’s English was almost perfect, or perhaps too perfect. Brits don’t exercise all those facial muscles in talking.
They stowed her bag in the Ford’s boot and Alma Pavitt took the passenger seat alongside Z. ‘The car’s sound enough,’ the DS assured her, ‘but sometimes I fancy something more upmarket, a touch of James Bond. It would make me feel I’m getting somewhere in the job.’
‘I doubt he ever needed his ego reinforcing.’ More laughter and a knowing flick of the head. The woman now seemed totally relaxed.
‘They didn’t tell me,’ Z probed, ‘if it’s Miss or Mrs Pavitt.’
‘Oh, either does. We’re separated, Dennis and I. I could have gone back to my maiden name but nobody can pronounce it. I’m Hungarian by birth. Mother escaped with me in ’56. I was only a toddler then.’
Which made her a good deal older than she looked. Her natural vivacity and careful make-up were deceptive. The black hair, braided and coiled stylishly over her crown, had no trace of grey in it. Her body was spare and lithe.
‘I went to a provincial polytechnic, studied catering and while Mother was alive I worked in various London hotels, while she took rooms near wherever I was at the time. When she died I hadn’t saved enough for a home of my own, or not one that would appeal to my tastes. A bit like you are with your car, you see. So I decided to live in others’ comfortable homes and leave the costs to them. I’ve been with the Hoads five years now. It’s my sixth long-standing job.’
Again that lilting laugh and a little flick of the head. If she’d worn her hair loose she’d have been quite the siren.
‘And somewhere along the way you married an Englishman.’
‘Yes.’ The gaiety left her. ‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘Live with someone?’
‘Not exactly.’ Z was reluctant to open up. ‘We have next-door flats,’ she allowed. This was getting out of hand. The woman had actually started interrogating her! Z needed to get back on track. ‘So how did you become housekeeper at Fordham Manor?’
‘That was through my husband. Ex-husband. He heard of the vacancy and I just turned up on the doorstep. Mr Hoad was frantic for help, and his wife abroad at the time. You will probably hear everything about me anyway. Connie Barton delights in telling how I married her good-for-nothing nephew. What a loser! God knows where he is now. At sea perhaps or in jail. He was not a serious person …’
The laughter died. Momentarily Alma became sombre herself. ‘ …and fifteen years younger than me.’ Her voice was bitte
r.
Well, if you take that sort of risk … Z told herself.
‘It suited us both to go our separate ways, and I am comfortable enough with the Hoads. Or have been. But what happens now? Will Daniel stay on? Do I carry on looking after things there?’
Again the practical side had taken over. There appeared to be no sorrow, no regret. Not even horror, now that she was over the initial shock. Could she be so detached, as though what had happened was a story she’d finished reading, or a film she saw a week ago? When she encountered the reality back at Fordham Manor, would it strike her full-face? Would the collapse come then? For the present she was only concerned with her own immediate future.
‘Who knows?’ Z’s tone was dry. ‘Let’s hope Mr Hoad’s solicitor had some contingency instructions. I imagine he’ll need to contact other family members, if there are any. Would you know about that?’
‘No. Not the sort of thing they would share with me. No family ever visited, from either side.’
That seemed to give Alma Pavitt fresh cause for thought. Her animation subsided and she slumped in her seat, taking no interest in the scenery that flashed by. The earlier vivacity had disappeared, like a light switched off. But Z couldn’t waste this unique opportunity to find out more about her passenger.
‘So how does Mrs Bellinger of Swindon get to be your aunt?’
‘She’s no relation. Auntie’s what we all called her when she was housekeeper at the Graythorpe Hotel. I went there as a young sous-chef after I took my City and Guilds in Catering. She sort of took to me, and recently I thought to look her up. Of course, by now she’s a letter or two short of a game of Scrabble.’
But, blessed with a home, is useful to fall back on for a rest weekend, Z appreciated. Alma Pavitt had a way of employing available resources.
Acting-DCI Salmon admitted himself frazzled, but strictly to himself, since he was portentously conscious of the need to keep up appearances before the lower ranks. The post-mortems had drawn out long into the evening and he was continually reminded of his inadequate and rapidly swallowed lunch by a hollow rattle that punctuated Littlejohn’s commentary on the two final bodies.
Both little girls had been in the best of health, the pathologist observed, apart, clearly, from being dead. Both his humour and Beaumont’s were becoming blacker and more strained. Salmon summoned up the residue of a Methodist childhood to register silent disapproval.
Despite only a single deep stab wound to each, making cause of death indisputable, there was still all the dismal routine of dissection, removal and weighing of their healthy organs to be endured. And Professor Littlejohn appeared to be in no hurry to finish.
When eventually Salmon and his DS issued into pitch-dark and a flurry of wind-borne rain, neither was inclined to tarry over niceties of conversation. Beaumont’s mobile phone warbled as he was halfway to his car. He snarled into it, recognising Z’s voice reporting that she was at an inn-yard half an hour from base, and what did Salmon want her to do with the housekeeper?
‘He’ll need to interview her,’ the DS claimed with vicious intent. That would go down like a pair of concrete boots with Salmon after the prolonged session with the bodies. But why should the undeservedly promoted oaf be released from duty’s shackles any earlier than he himself?
He shouted across the car park and waved vigorously. Salmon ploughed on through the rain, head lowered. Bull at a ruddy gate, Beaumont thought. Well, his own Toyota wasn’t the bold crimson of a matador’s cloak for nothing. Z’s message should reach Salmon if it meant running him down in the process.
Her quoted half-hour had been understated because Alma Pavitt was determined to sample the inn’s vaunted steak pie, where they’d stopped for a break. Meanwhile, Acting-DCI Salmon, equally fixated on the prospect of food, brushed off Beaumont’s preference for a double Indian takeaway to be sent in, for fear of unseemly lingering scents. Instead he decreed ham sandwiches with chutney in the canteen. These had long been consumed when the two women turned up. Salmon, more than ready for bed, greeted their arrival with simmering rancour.
It surprised neither of his sergeants that the housekeeper’s breezy confidence went down badly with him. Although Z was able to furnish a summary of what she had learnt from the woman on the journey back from Swindon, he insisted on questioning her minutely about her background (foreign, therefore dubious), relations with the Hoad family (claimed to be excellent, therefore suspicious) and private opinion of her employers (favourable, therefore most likely false).
She was required to write out her maiden surname, which Salmon found as contentious as Zyczynski’s own, the date of her marriage, and details of the defaulting Dennis Pavitt. Alma repeated what she’d told Z about the reason for travelling to Swindon by train rather than in her own car. ‘Wasn’t it lucky I put it in for repair,’ she said winningly, ‘since that hellish storm was brewing up?’
Salmon declined to answer. Alma continued to flash him her wide, white-toothed smile. He demanded her house keys and reminded her that Fordham Manor was now a crime scene. She must put up elsewhere until such time as the police permitted reentry.
There he did succeed in disconcerting her. It seemed that the Bartons had begrudgingly agreed to take her for a few days at the old farmhouse, but Alma wasn’t having any. ‘Not in that hovel,’ she objected. ‘I’ll check in at the Fletcher’s Rest and charge it to the Hoads’ executors.’
‘You can always try,’ Beaumont encouraged, knowing the solicitor involved and hopeful of an interesting outcome.
Scorning the offer of a patrol car to deliver her to the pub, she rang for a taxi and took her leave coolly, only nodding when Salmon warned he would need to question her more fully next day.
‘How old would you say she was?’ Z asked Beaumont as they stepped out into a fresh-smelling but puddled night where the rain had at last given up.
‘Hovering over forty for the first time. Why?’
‘She claims to be in her early fifties. At least that’s what she must be if her story’s true about coming to England as a toddler refugee in ’56.’
‘M’m, Hungarian. They’re a lively lot, aren’t they? Think of the Gabor sisters, flirty into their nineties. They’ve a certain je ne sais quoi, and don’t wear out like English lady coppers do, Z.’
‘Thanks a lot. Maybe you’re right.’
She left it at that. All the same, schooled in England, surely by now Alma Pavitt would have lost that occasional slide into foreign intonation. Unless at home her mother had always insisted on the use of her own language.
An interesting woman, the Hoad housekeeper. And a superb cook, according to her own evaluation. Z caught herself wondering how differently the outcome might have been on that fateful night if Alma Pavitt had stayed on at the Manor. Would there have been one more body to account for? Or might she somehow have contrived to get away and survive to give an account of what had happened?
Pausing as he started to unlock his Toyota parked alongside, Beaumont too had been busy with private ruminations. He came out with a personal question for Z. As a kid did you ever sleep over with a schoolmate?’
‘No, my aunt wouldn’t allow it.’ Her tone was dry. Her aunt’s concept of risk was tragically misplaced. The real danger had been in her own home, under the paedophile uncle’s roof.
‘But I did once have a friend sleep over when her mother went into hospital overnight. We shared my room,’ Z conceded.
‘So, d’you recall how it was? What did you get up to together? Something special, exciting?’
Z smiled, remembering. ‘A secret “midnight feast”. Like we’d read about in schoolgirl magazines. Innocent enough, but we planned and plotted for days beforehand. Noreen smuggled the goodies in with her overnight bag. Sausage rolls, jam doughnuts and a bottle of ginger pop. We took turns in drinking with a straw and thought we were no end wicked.’
She faced Beaumont. ‘You’re thinking Angela and Monica were up to something of the sort?’
&nbs
p; ‘This is a more sophisticated age, Z. We found a half-empty bottle of Croft’s Original under the bed. Also an empty box of chocolate truffles and wrappers from two lots of supermarket dressed crab salad with plastic teaspoons. Little wonder the storm failed to wake them. As Littlejohn discovered, their little stomachs were stuffed full.’
‘And they’d be half-seas-over on the sherry.’ That, and the innocent fun, made their end the more pitiable.
‘You can bet that when the lab comes up with an analysis of stomach contents, that’s what they’ll find, plus whatever was the kids’ official supper.’
‘Was there anything of particular interest the post-mortems produced after I’d left?’
Beaumont assumed a cocky, know-all air. ‘A note from the lab on something Littlejohn had requested in advance. Blood types. Not only was a small amount of blood, identified as young Angela’s, found on Hoad’s pyjama jacket, but it didn’t match the group of either parent. Whether it was an accepted fact or not, the Hoad daughter could have been adopted.’
Z frowned. ‘She could still be Jennifer’s child. Carrying her unknown father’s blood type.’
Beaumont had to agree, but his crowing revelations stayed in Z’s head as she drove home through almost silent streets.
How could Angela’s blood have reached Hoad’s body? Unless he had been the one to stab her and so became contaminated. But ‘a small amount,’ Beaumont had said.
If Hoad had been the killer, surely his hands and pyjama cuffs would have been stained by both children’s blood. At the morgue she’d seen that they weren’t.
An alternative explanation was that the same knife had been used on both Hoad and Angela by a third party, and the children killed first. It wasn’t the sadly familiar pattern of a family massacre, where the enraged husband went first for his wife, then the children – usually by smothering — finally killing himself. From his complex wounds, it was quite clear that Frederick Hoad had been totally incapable of that last act. He’d been shot dead with a single .22 bullet which she’d watched being removed from the body. His stabbing was post-mortem, as indicated by the amount of blood loss. But apparently the little girls had been stabbed in between.