The Scold's Bridle

by Minette Walters

  ‘You said the pathologist’s report mentioned nettle rash on her cheeks and temples,’ said Sarah apologetically. ‘But she’d have to have been alive for her skin to react to the stings.’

  ‘It was only slight,’ he amended. ‘The way I see it, her killer didn’t wait till she was dead – you don’t hang about when you’re murdering someone – he or she shoved the nettles in while she was dying.’

  Sarah nodded. ‘It sounds plausible,’ she agreed, ‘except—’ She didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘Except what, Dr Blakeney?’

  ‘Why would anyone want to murder her?’

  He shrugged. ‘Her daughter and her granddaughter had strong enough motives. According to the will, the estate is to be divided equally between the two of them. Mrs Lascelles gets the money and Miss Lascelles gets Cedar House.’

  ‘Did they know?’

  He nodded. ‘Mrs Lascelles certainly did because she showed us where to find the will – Mrs Gillespie was very methodical, kept all her papers and correspondence in neat files in a cabinet in the library – but whether Miss Lascelles knew the precise terms, I don’t know. She claims her grandmother intended her to have everything and is very put out to discover she is only going to get the house.’ His face assumed a somewhat ironic expression. ‘She’s a greedy young woman. There’s not many seventeen-year-olds would turn their noses up at a windfall like that.’

  Sarah smiled slightly. ‘Presumably you’ve checked to find out where they were the night she died?’

  He nodded again. ‘Mrs Lascelles was at a concert in London with a friend; Miss Lascelles was thirty miles away under the watchful eye of a housemistress at school.’

  She forced another smile. ‘Which puts them out of the picture.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. I never set much store by alibis and someone had to get into Cedar House.’ He frowned. ‘Apart from Mrs Spede and Mrs Gillespie herself, the Lascelles women were the only other ones with keys.’

  ‘You’re determined to make it murder,’ protested Sarah mildly.

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘We’ve questioned everyone in the village. Mrs Spede was at the pub with her husband and, as far as friends are concerned, we can’t find anyone who was on calling terms with Mrs Gillespie, let alone at around nine o’clock on a Saturday night in November.’ He shrugged. ‘In any case, her neighbours, Mr and Mrs Orloff, say they would have heard the bell ringing if someone had come to her door. When Mrs Gillespie sold them their part of the house, she simply had the bell moved from the kitchen, which is now theirs, to the corridor outside which remained hers. I tested it. They couldn’t have missed it if it was rung that night.’

  Sarah caught his eye. ‘Then it seems fairly obvious that it must have been suicide.’

  ‘Not to me, Dr Blakeney. In the first place, I intend to put those two alibis under a microscope and, in the second place, if Mrs Gillespie’s murderer was someone she knew, they could have tapped on the windows or the back door without the Orloffs hearing them.’ He closed his notebook and tucked it into his pocket. ‘We’ll get them eventually. Probably through their fingerprints.’

  ‘You’re going on with it then? I thought your boss had decided to drop it.’

  ‘We raised a number of fingerprints in that house which don’t belong to Mrs Gillespie or the three women who had keys. We’ll be asking everyone in the village and outsiders like you, who knew her, to let us take prints for comparison purposes. I’ve persuaded the Chief to find out who else went in there before he draws a line under this one.’

  ‘You seem to be taking Mrs Gillespie’s death very personally.’

  ‘Policing’s no different from any other job, Doctor. The higher up the ladder you are the better the pension at the end.’ His amiable face grew suddenly cynical. ‘But promotion has more to do with empire-building than ability, and to date my light has always been hidden under some other sod’s bushel. I do take Mrs Gillespie’s death personally. It’s my case.’

  Sarah found this bleakly amusing. She wondered how Mathilda would feel about a policeman benefiting from her death, assuming, of course, he could prove it was murder and then convict the murderer. She might have felt happier if she wasn’t so convinced that he was going to score on both counts.

  ‘Keith? It’s Sarah. Sarah Blakeney. Has Jack been in touch with you, by any chance?’ She toyed with the telephone wire while she listened to the sound of Cooper’s car fading into the distance. There were too many shadows in this hall, she thought.

  ‘Not recently,’ said Keith Smollett’s pleasant voice. ‘Should he have been?’

  There was no point beating about the bush. ‘We had a row. I told him I wanted a divorce and he’s gone off in a huff. He left a note saying I could contact him through you.’

  ‘Oh, good God, Sarah! Well, I can’t act for both of you. Jack will have to find himself another solicitor.’

  ‘He’s opted for you. I’m the one who has to find someone else.’

  ‘Bugger that,’ said Keith cheerfully. ‘You’re my client, sweetheart. The only reason I’ve ever done anything for that lazy good-for-nothing is because you married him.’ He and Sarah had been friends from university days and there had been a time, before Jack entered the frame, when Keith had had designs on Sarah himself. Now, he was happily married with three strapping young sons, and only thought about her on the rare occasions when she telephoned.

  ‘Yes, well, that’s a side issue at the moment. The main issue is that I need to talk to him rather urgently. He’s bound to contact you so will you let me know where he is as soon as he does. It’s desperately important.’ She glanced towards the stairs, her face a pale glimmer in the reflected light from the kitchen. Far too many shadows.

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘There’s something else. What’s my legal position with regard to a police investigation into a possible murder?’ She heard his indrawn breath. ‘I don’t mean I’m involved or anything but I think I’ve been given some information that I really ought to pass on. The police don’t seem to know about it, but it’s incredibly sensitive stuff and very secondhand, and if it doesn’t have any bearing then I shall be betraying a confidence that’s going to affect quite a few lives really badly.’ She drew to a halt. Why had Ruth told her about the letter and not Cooper? Or had she told Cooper as well?‘Does any of that make any sense?’

  ‘Not much. My advice, for what it’s worth, is don’t withhold anything from the police unless it’s confidential medical information on a patient. Force them to go through the proper channels for that. They’ll do it, of course, but you’ll be squeaky-clean.’

  ‘The person who told me isn’t even a patient.’

  ‘Then you don’t have a problem.’

  ‘But I could ruin lives by speaking out of turn,’ she said doubtfully. ‘We’re talking ethics here, Keith.’

  ‘No, we’re not. Ethics don’t exist outside church and ivory towers. We’re talking big, bad world, where even doctors go to prison if they obstruct the police in their enquiries. You won’t have a leg to stand on, my girl, if it turns out you withheld information that could have resulted in a conviction for murder.’

  ‘But I’m not sure it is murder. It looks like suicide.’

  ‘Then why is your voice quivering about two pitches higher than normal? You sound like Maria Callas on a bad night. It’s only a snap judgement, of course, but I’d say you’re one hundred per cent certain that you’re looking at murder and ninety-nine per cent certain that you know who did it. Talk to the police.’

  She was silent for so long that he began to wonder if the line had been cut. ‘You’re wrong about the ninety-nine per cent,’ she said at last. ‘Actually, I haven’t a clue who might have done it.’ With a muted goodbye, she hung up.

  The telephone started to ring before she had removed her hand from the receiver, but her nerves were so shot to pieces that it was several moments before she could find the courage to pick it up.

  The
following morning, Saturday, a solicitor drove from Poole to Fontwell with Mathilda’s will in his briefcase. He had telephoned Cedar House the previous evening to introduce himself and to unleash his bombshell, namely that all Mathilda’s previous wills were rendered null and void by the one she had signed in his office two days before she died. He had been instructed by Mrs Gillespie to break the news to her daughter and granddaughter in person as soon as convenient after her funeral, and to do it in the presence of Dr Sarah Blakeney of Mill House, Long Upton. Dr Blakeney was free tomorrow. Would eleven o’clock be convenient for Mrs and Miss Lascelles?

  The atmosphere in Mathilda’s drawing-room was icy. Joanna stood by the french windows, staring out over the garden, her back to both Sarah and her daughter. Ruth smoked continuously, darting malicious glances between the rigid back of the one woman and the obvious discomfort of the other. No one spoke. To Sarah, who had always loved this room with its mish-mash of beautiful antiques: Georgian corner cabinets, old and faded chintz covers on the Victorian sofa and chairs, nineteenth-century Dutch watercolours and the Louis XVI Lyre clock on the mantelpiece, this unwelcome and unwelcomed return was depressing.

  The sound of car tyres on the gravel outside broke the tension. ‘I’ll go,’ said Ruth, jumping up.

  ‘I can’t even remember what he said his name was,’ declared Joanna, turning back into the room. ‘Dougall, Douglas?’

  ‘Duggan,’ said Sarah.

  Joanna frowned. ‘You know him, then.’

  ‘No. I wrote his name down when he phoned last night.’ She fished a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘Paul Duggan of Duggan, Smith and Drew, Hills Road, Poole.’

  Joanna listened to her daughter greeting someone at the door. ‘My mother seems to have had considerable faith in you, Dr Blakeney. Why was that, do you suppose? You can only have known her – what? – a year?’ Her face was impassive – schooled that way, thought Sarah, to preserve her youthfulness – but her eyes were deeply suspicious.

  Sarah smiled without hostility. She had been placed in a very invidious position, and she wasn’t enjoying the experience. She had considerable sympathy for Joanna, one way and another, and she was becoming increasingly troubled by Mathilda’s memory. Their relationship, a light-hearted one at best, was turning oppressive in retrospect, and she resented the old woman’s assumption that she could manipulate her doctor after her death and without prior permission. It was neither Sarah’s business nor her wish to act as mediator in an acrimonious legal battle between Joanna and her daughter. ‘I’m as much in the dark as you are, Mrs Lascelles, and probably just as annoyed,’ she said frankly. ‘I’ve a week’s shopping to do, a house to clean and a garden to take care of. I’m only here because Mr Duggan said if I didn’t come then he would have to postpone this meeting until I could. I thought that would be even more upsetting for you and Ruth’ – she shrugged – ‘so I agreed to it.’

  Joanna was on the point of answering when the door swung open and Ruth walked in, followed by a smiling middle-aged man carrying a video recorder with a briefcase balanced on top of it. ‘Mr Duggan,’ she said curtly, flopping into her chair again. ‘He wants to use the television. Would you believe, Granny’s made a frigging video-will?’

  ‘Not strictly true, Miss Lascelles,’ said the man, bending down to place the recorder on the floor beside the television. He straightened and held out a hand to Joanna, guessing correctly that she was Mathilda’s daughter. ‘How do you do, Mrs Lascelles.’ He moved across to Sarah, who had stood up, and shook her hand also. ‘Dr Blakeney.’ He gestured to the chairs. ‘Please sit down. I’m very aware that all our time is precious, so I don’t intend to take up more of it than I need to. I am here as one of the joint executors of the last written will and testament of Mrs Mathilda Beryl Gillespie, copies of which I will give you in a few minutes, and from which you may satisfy yourselves that it does in fact supersede any previous will or wills made by Mrs Gillespie. The other joint executor is Mr John Hapgood, currently manager of Barclays Bank, Hills Road, Poole. In both instances, of course, we hold our responsibilities as executors on behalf of our firms so should either of us cease employment with the said firms, then another executor will be appointed in our place.’ He paused briefly. ‘Is all that quite clear?’ He glanced from one to the other. ‘Good. Now, if you’ll bear with me for a moment, I’ll just connect the video to the television.’ He produced a coil of coaxial cable like a magician from his pocket and plugged one end into the television and the other into the video recorder. ‘And now a power socket,’ he murmured, unrolling a wire and a plug from the back of the video. ‘If I remember correctly, it’s above the skirting board to the right of the fireplace. Ah, yes, here we are. Splendid. And just in case you’re wondering how I knew, then let me explain that Mrs Gillespie invited me here to make an inventory of all her possessions.’ He beamed at them. ‘Purely to avoid acrimonious arguments between the relative parties after the will has been read.’

  Sarah was aware that her mouth had been hanging open since he entered the room. She shut it with a conscious effort and watched him deftly tune the television to receive the signal from the recorder, then open his briefcase and remove a video cassette which he inserted into the recorder before standing back to let Mathilda speak for herself. You could have heard a pin drop, she thought, as Mathilda’s face materialized on the screen. Even Ruth sat as if carved in stone, her cigarette temporarily forgotten between her fingers.

  The well-remembered voice, with its strident upper-class vowels, spoke confidently from the amplifier.

  ‘Well, my dears,’ Mathilda’s lips thinned scornfully, ‘I’m sure you’re wondering why I insisted on bringing you together like this. Joanna, I have no doubt, is cursing me quietly under her breath, Ruth is nursing yet another grievance and Sarah, I suspect, is beginning to wish she had never met me.’ The old woman gave a dry laugh. ‘I am, by now, impervious to your curses, Joanna, so if there is awareness after death, which I doubt, they won’t be troubling me. And, Ruth, your grievances have become so tiresome recently that, frankly, I’m bored with them. They won’t be troubling me either.’ Her voice softened a little. ‘The irritation, however, that I am sure Sarah is feeling at my unilateral decision to involve her in my family’s affairs does concern me. All I can say is that I have valued your friendship and your strength of character, Sarah, during the time I’ve known you, and I cannot think of anyone else who could even begin to support the burden that I am about to place on your shoulders.’

  There was a brief pause while she consulted some notes on her lap. To Sarah, whose uncritical affection now appeared naïve in the face of the universal dislike which Mathilda had inspired in those who knew her, the old woman’s eyes were uncharacteristically cruel. Where, she wondered, had her humour gone?

  ‘I wish to make it absolutely clear that Joanna is not James Gillespie’s daughter, but the daughter of my uncle, Gerald Cavendish. He was my father’s elder brother and . . .’ she sought for the right words to express herself, ‘the liaison between us began some four years after he invited me and my father to live with him in Cedar House following the death of my mother. My father had no money of his own because the estate had been settled on the elder son, Gerald. My mother’s money reverted to her family when she died, apart from a small inheritance which was left in trust for me. Without Gerald’s invitation to live with him in Cedar House, my father and I would have been homeless. To that extent I was grateful. In every other respect I despised and loathed the man.’ She smiled coldly. ‘I was a child of thirteen when he first raped me.’

  Sarah was shocked – not just by what Mathilda was saying, but by the way she was saying it. This was not a Mathilda she recognized. Why was she being so brutal, so coldly calculating?

  ‘He was a drunken monster, like my father, and I hated them both. Between them, they destroyed any chance I might ever have had of forming a lasting and successful relationship. I have never known if my father knew what Gerald was doing
but, even if he did, I am in no doubt whatsoever that he would have let it continue for fear of Gerald evicting us from Cedar House. My father was an intensely lazy man who scrounged off his wife’s family until she died, and then scrounged off his brother. The only time I ever knew him to work was later, when he stood for election to the House of Commons, and then only because he saw membership as an easy route to a knighthood. Once elected, of course, he reverted to what he truly was – a contemptible man.’ She paused again, her mouth turned down in bitter remembrance.

  ‘Gerald’s abuse of me continued on and off for twelve years when, in desperation, I told my father about it. I cannot adequately explain why it took me so long, except to say that I lived in constant terror of both of them. I was a prisoner, financially and socially, and I was brought up to believe, as many of my generation were, that men held natural authority within a family. I thank God those times are passing because I see now that natural authority belongs only to those who earn the respect to exercise it, be they male or female.’ She paused for a moment. ‘My father, of course, blamed me for what had happened, calling me a disgusting slut, and was disinclined to do anything. He preferred, as I knew he would, to maintain the status quo at my expense. But he was vulnerable. He was now a Member of Parliament, and in desperation I threatened to write to the Conservative Party and the newspapers in order to expose what sort of family the Cavendishes really were. As a result of this, a compromise was reached. I was allowed to marry James Gillespie who had declared an interest in me, and in return I agreed to say nothing. Under these conditions, we made some attempt to resume our lives although my father, fearing perhaps that I would go back on my word, insisted that my marriage to James take place immediately. He secured James a position at the Treasury, and packed us off to a flat in London.’

  There was a longer silence this time while she turned to another page of her notes, adjusting her glasses as she did so. ‘Unfortunately, I was already pregnant, and when Joanna was born less than five months after our marriage, even James, by no means the brightest of men, realized the baby couldn’t possibly be his. Life became very difficult after that. Not unreasonably, he resented us both, and this led to bouts of violence whenever he had too much to drink. We continued in this unhappy vein for another eighteen months until, mercifully, James announced that he had secured a job abroad and would be sailing the next day without us. I have never regretted his departure or cared one iota what happened to him. He was a very unpleasant piece of work.’ The old eyes stared straight out of the screen, arrogant and disdainful, but for Sarah at least there was a sense of something withheld. Mathilda, she thought, was not being quite honest.