by K. J. Frost
“Miss Sutton…” I wander over to the curtained window and sit in the armchair, looking across at her. “… can you tell me what happened today?”
She blinks a few times, rather rapidly. “It was dreadful,” she whispers. “I—I’d been given permission to go out Christmas shopping at lunchtime,” she says, regaining her voice. “And when I got back, Amy was a bit fed up with having to stay indoors…”
“What time was this?” I interrupt.
“After one,” she muses, thinking. “And before half past.” I nod my head, indicating she should continue with her story. “Being as Amy had already had lunch with cook, I put Eve into the pram, and we went for a walk to the park…”
“Which park?”
“The one just down the road.” She points out of the window. “Under the railway bridge. We used to go to the one further away in Ewell Road, but they’re digging it up now to plant potatoes, or something. Amy liked it better at that park, because there are swings, but with the workmen being there, she’s had to settle for the smaller one of late, I’m afraid.” I nod my head and she continues, “We’d been there for a little while, when something went wrong with the wheel of the pram.”
“What exactly?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” she replies. “It got stuck and wouldn’t turn properly, like there was something caught. I crouched down to see… to try and release it, and… and…” She starts to sob. “Oh God… They’re going to blame me, aren’t they?”
“No-one is blaming anybody, Miss Sutton. I just need you to tell me what happened.”
“Well,” she sniffles, “it took me a few minutes to get the wheel to work again. I twisted it this way and that, and checked to see if a stone had become lodged, or if there was a twig stuck in it…”
“And where was Amy while you were doing this?” I ask her.
“She was running around on the grass.”
“I see.”
“And then, when I stood up again, Eve was fretting, because her mitten had come off, and I couldn’t find it for a minute, and had to tend to her, and then when I turned around to call Amy, she wasn’t there.”
“So how long would you say it was between the time when you bent down to look at the wheel, and the time when you noticed Amy had gone?” I ask.
“Five minutes,” she replies. “Maybe just a little longer.”
“Is she normally a well behaved girl?” I enquire. “Do you think she’d have run off somewhere? Perhaps decided to hide… to play a trick?”
She shakes her head slowly. “She’d never do something like that,” she says softly. “Amy was a lovely girl. She could be a little bit tiresome when she was bored, or tired, but that’s normal for children of her age.”
I take her word for it, being none the wiser.
“Did you notice anyone else in the park at the time?”
“Th—There was a man,” she replies, stammering, perhaps a little hesitant in her reply. “He was there when we first arrived, although I can’t say I noticed him later on.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He was standing some way off,” she says.
“Even so, you must have noticed whether he was tall or short?”
“Tall,” she replies, quickly.
“As tall as me?”
“No. Not that tall, but still tall.”
“Fat or thin?”
“Thin, but not skinny, if you know what I mean.”
“Was he wearing a hat?” I ask.
“Yes, like yours.” I glance down at my fedora. “But I’d have said it was black, not blue. And he had on a dark coat… grey, I think, with the collar turned up.”
“I don’t suppose you managed to notice if he had a moustache, or glasses?”
“No,” she replies, thinking before she answers.
“And you didn’t recognise him at all? You hadn’t seen him at the park before, perhaps?”
There’s a moment’s hesitation before she shakes her head.
I’m intrigued by that, but suddenly there’s a noise from the room next door, which starts as a plaintive whimper and quickly develops into a full-scale cry.
“I’m sorry,” Miss Sutton says, getting to her feet. “I’m afraid I have to go and see to Eve.”
“Just before you do, can you describe what Amy was wearing?”
The crying grows louder, but Miss Sutton remains focused on me for a moment longer. “Yes,” she says, quite calmly now. “She had on a red dress, a pale blue coat and matching hat, and black shoes.”
“Thank you.” I nod towards the door, dismissing her and she smiles, then straightens her dress, making a point of running her hands down her skirt and wiggling her hips a little more than is necessary, before leaving the room.
Thompson sidles over and stands beside me.
“I pity the poor man who ever falls for her,” he whispers and I glance up at him before getting to my feet.
“I doubt she’ll be monogamous, if that’s what you mean.”
He shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t, actually. I think she’s a tease. All promise and no delivery; I think Mr Sanderson can dream, but that the most he’ll ever get from her is his own fantasies.”
“You think?” I shake my head.
“You don’t?” he queries.
“No. If I’m being honest, I think precisely the opposite. I think she’d more than deliver and any man who fell for her would be lucky to survive.”
“Well, that just shows what you know about women,” he chuckles, moving towards the door and holding it open for me.
“We’ll see,” I muse, smiling as I pass him and go out onto the landing.
Downstairs, we find Mrs Sanderson still sitting in the drawing room, her husband standing by the fireplace, his glass in hand. He turns as we enter and takes a step towards us.
“How is she?” he asks.
“Miss Sutton?” I ask, checking that he means the nanny. He nods his head. “She’s fine.” I notice again how solicitous he seems for the nanny’s welfare, considering he’s shown no interest in his wife. But then I suppose I have no idea what’s been going on between the two of them in our absence. For all I know, they may have been locked in an intimate embrace until they heard our approach, and I wonder if maybe I’m being a little cynical. Perhaps the situation with Doctor Tierney is rubbing off on me. Actually, there’s no ‘perhaps’ about it.
“It’s clear your daughter went missing in the park, or recreation ground,” I explain, remaining by the sideboard, with Thompson next to me. “And that’s where our search teams are focusing their efforts.”
“You think she just wandered off?” Mrs Sanderson looks up from her chair.
“We can’t be sure of anything at the moment.”
“Nothing Amy did would surprise me. She was always difficult… right from the moment she was born,” she muses, to herself, then seems to come to her senses, blushing, and then turns to her husband, who ignores her. I decide to do likewise. For now, at least.
“Your nanny said there was a man in the park when they first arrived. She said he was tall, and thin, wearing a black fedora and grey coat with the collar turned up.”
“Well, that probably describes almost every man in the country,” Sanderson replies sarcastically.
“I—I need to lie down,” his wife says suddenly, getting to her feet a little shakily. “I—I can’t be here.”
The shock of it seems to have hit her all of a sudden, as I expected, and as she crosses the room towards us, I take in her pallor, the fact that even her lips have whitened, and her green eyes are duller by comparison with how they were when we arrived a short while ago.
Thompson steps to one side and opens the door, letting her out, without anyone saying another word.
Once she’s gone, I turn back to her husband. “Can we have a recent photograph of your daughter?” I ask him.
He hesitates for a moment, looking at the closed door, with a worried expression on his face, which
makes me feel guilty for having had so many doubts about him, and then goes over to the piano, picking up a small frame and bringing it to me.
“That’s the most recent,” he mumbles.
I glance down and see a cheeky smiling face looking back at me, with rounded cheeks and a smattering of freckles. Her hair is tied up in bunches at the sides of her head, but the photograph is black-and-white, so her colouring is difficult to ascertain.
“Is her hair red?” I ask.
“Yes, like her mother’s,” Mr Sanderson replies.
I turn to Thompson. “Go back to the station and give this to Tooley, will you? Give him the description of the girl’s clothing as well, and make sure it gets circulated around.”
He nods his head and leaves.
“Now, Mr Sanderson,” I say, turning back to him. “I need to speak with your cook.”
“My cook?” He sounds surprised.
“Yes.”
“Why, may I ask?”
I sigh, wishing the man didn’t see fit to question my every move. “Because when your nanny came home with the baby, she was hysterical. When people are in that condition, they tend to say and do things that they later forget. The people around them quite often remember, however. And just to be on the safe side, I’d like to ask your cook exactly what happened when Miss Sutton returned home.”
He nods his head slowly and walks across the room, looking even older now; the contrast between himself and his young wife even more marked in my eyes.
“It’s this way,” he says and opens the door, taking me out into the hallway and towards the back of the house. He pushes open a swing door and stands aside.
“In here?” He’s obviously got no intention of making the introductions this time, and after he’s nodded his affirmation, I walk inside and wait for the door to swing closed behind me.
I find myself in a sizeable kitchen, with the latest appliances, a shiny linoleum floor and a large table in the centre. What’s lacking, however, is a cook – or any other staff, for that matter.
“Hello?” I call.
“Just a minute,” comes a reply from behind the door in the corner, and sure enough, within a lot less time than that, the door opens, and a middle-aged woman comes out. She’s plump, with grey-brown hair and a kindly rounded face, which is currently smiling at me. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I was just getting the sugar from the larder.” She’s carrying a large container in her arms, which she places on the table in front of her. “How can I help?” she asks.
“I’m Detective Inspector Stone.” I introduce myself. “I’m here to ask about what happened this afternoon.”
She shakes her head. “Bad business,” she murmurs. “Very bad indeed.” She pulls out a chair and nods towards it. “I’m Doreen Slater, the cook. I’ve just made a pot of tea. Take a seat and I’ll pour you a cup.”
She’s the most welcoming and friendly person I’ve encountered since entering this house and I take her up on her offer, placing my hat on the table to one side.
She makes herself busy with cups and saucers, a sugar bowl and milk jug, and then settles a tea pot between us, before sitting down opposite me. “What can I do to help?” she enquires.
“Can you tell me what happened when Miss Sutton came home this afternoon?”
She nods her head. “There was all kinds of fuss,” she says. “I heard the front door slam, which was odd in itself, because when she’s gone out with the pram, she normally uses the back door… but, anyway, she was ranting and screaming, and I ran out to see what was going on. Lois followed…”
“Who’s Lois?” I ask, interrupting her.
“She’s the maid,” she replies.
“Is she here now?”
“Yes. She’s upstairs. The mistress rang just a minute or two before you came in here.”
I nod my head. “I see. You were telling me about earlier?”
She starts pouring the tea and continues, “Yes… we went out into the hallway and there she was – Miss Sutton, that is – wringing her hands, and crying, wailing about how Amy had run off, and she didn’t know what to do. She was getting more and more worked up. And then the mistress came downstairs, and that set Miss Sutton off even worse, which woke the baby, who started crying, so I stepped over and slapped her… Miss Sutton, that is, not the baby.” She smiles, just slightly and adds milk to the tea, pushing the cup towards me. “Help yourself to sugar.”
“I don’t, thank you.”
She nods and takes a quick sip from her own cup. “Once we’d established that Amy really was gone, I telephoned the police.” She stops talking and looks down at the table. “I probably wasn’t as coherent as I might have been,” she says, “but there was such a to-do going on, it was hard to think straight, let alone answer the man’s questions.”
“Don’t worry about that. I—”
I’m interrupted by the opening of the kitchen door, and the arrival of a woman dressed in a maid’s outfit, of a dark grey dress, with a white apron tied at the waist. She looks about fifty years old, with dark blonde hair, turning grey in places, which is unwilling to be tamed by the hat that’s perched on her head. “She’s in pieces up there,” she says, studying her bitten fingernails. “Pour me a cup out of that pot, will you, Doreen, and I’ll take it up to her.” She stops in her tracks, noticing me at last. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
“This is an inspector… from the police,” the cook says, with deference.
“Oh. Did you need to speak with me?” the maid asks.
“No, not at present.”
She sighs. “That’s good.” I smile and she half laughs. “I haven’t done anything wrong, you understand, it’s just that the mistress wants a bath, and I don’t really feel like I can leave her up there by herself. Not at the moment. I’m not a lady’s maid, so it’s not really my job to tend to her, but in the circumstances…”
“I understand.”
The cook hands her a cup of tea and, with a nod of her head in my direction, she departs again.
“I take it that was Lois?” I say, turning to the cook.
“She’s got a good heart,” she replies, rolling her eyes. “Even if her cleaning can be a bit slapdash.” She takes another sip from her teacup and I do likewise. “What were you going to ask?” she says.
“I was wondering if Miss Sutton had mentioned seeing anyone, or if she’d said anything out of the ordinary had happened?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “No, she just said Amy had gone missing, that she’d looked for her and couldn’t find her, and then had rushed home, hoping the child would have found her own way back here… which she hadn’t, obviously.”
I nod my head. “And would you say Amy is the sort of child who would just wander off?” I know I’ve asked the nanny this, and she refuted the idea, and that she’s more likely to know the child, much better than anyone else in all probability, but it does no harm to get a different perspective.
“I think it’s exactly the sort of thing that little monster would do,” she replies, with considerable feeling.
I stare across at her, recalling Mrs Sanderson’s outburst a few minutes ago, which I’d originally put down to her distress. Perhaps I was wrong… “Would you care to elaborate?”
She sits forward in her seat, clutching her teacup in her hands. “I know I probably shouldn’t say this, given the circumstances, but that little girl is just about the most wilful, rude, disobedient creature I’ve ever come across. Lois and I had to give her lunch today, because Miss Sutton had asked permission to go Christmas shopping… and although she was only gone for an hour, it took me nearly twice that length of time to clear up the mess that little tike left in my kitchen.” She places her hand flat on the surface of the table. “Do you know… at lunch today, she actually poured custard all over the table, when my back was turned,” she muses. “There’s the government sending out leaflets, telling us to be careful about wasting food, and she’s tipping custard all ove
r the place. I can’t tell you how relieved we were when Miss Sutton came back and took them both out.”
“And is that normal behaviour for her?” I ask. “The child, I mean?”
“Well, not the custard, perhaps,” she says. “But the naughtiness, yes. Whenever Miss Sutton has an afternoon off, or is even out for just an hour or so, Lois is left holding the fort, as it were, and Amy runs her ragged.”
This description, while similar to that given by Mrs Sanderson, is very much at odds with Miss Sutton’s praise of her charge and has me much more intrigued than I was before.
“I understand Miss Sutton has been here for less than a year?” I say, starting to dig a little deeper.
“Yes. Before her, the master insisted that his old nanny was more than capable of looking after the children, and I think she probably was, while there was just Amy. But when the baby came along it all got a bit too much for her, having to deal with both of them, especially with Amy being as naughty as she can be. Anyway, one day she nearly dropped Eve, when she was about a month old, right in front of both the master and the mistress. He advertised for a new nanny straight away, and took on Miss Sutton just a few days later.” She gives me a look and a very slight nod of her head.
“Is it usual for the master of a house to hire the nanny?” I ask, knowing perfectly well that it isn’t.
“No,” she replies, bridling a little. “But at the time, the mistress was… indisposed.”
“She was unwell?”
Mrs Slater pauses, then leans even further forward. “I wouldn’t say ‘unwell’ as such,” she whispers. “But after Amy was born, she became very withdrawn. To be honest, I never thought they were that well suited… the master and the mistress, that is. I was quite surprised when Mr Sanderson brought her home and announced he was going to marry her, but she’s very beautiful and it was easy to see the attraction – at least from his side, anyway.” She smiles. “And I suppose they were quite contented to start with,” she says, getting into her stride now. “And then the mistress fell pregnant within just a month or so of the wedding. The pregnancy was very difficult, though, and she had to move into the bedroom at the front of the house – where she is now. Then after Amy was born, as I say, she… well, she kind of went into a shell, I suppose. She barely spoke, and never went out. And it carried on that way for years.”