The Scold's Bridle

by Minette Walters

  ‘Imaginatively.’

  Charlie gave a low laugh. ‘The only question is, who is Cordelia?’

  Jack didn’t answer.

  ‘And did he come looking for his mother or was it pure chance that brought him here? Who recognized whom, I wonder?’

  Again Jack didn’t answer, and Charlie’s brows snapped together ferociously. ‘You are not obliged to answer my questions, Mr Blakeney, but you would be very unwise to forget that I am investigating murder and attempted murder here. Silence won’t help you, you know.’

  Jack shrugged, apparently unmoved by threats. ‘Even if any of this were true, what does it have to do with Mathilda’s death?’

  ‘Dave Hughes told me an interesting story today. He says he watched you clean a gravestone in the cemetery at Fontwell, claims you were obviously so fascinated by it that he went and read it after you’d gone. Do you remember what it says?’

  ‘“George Fitzgibbon 1789–1833. Did I deserve to be despised, By my creator, good and wise? Since you it was who made me be, Then part of you must die with me.” I looked him up in the parish records. He succumbed to syphilis as a result of loose living. Maria, his wretched wife, died of the same thing four years later and was popped into the ground alongside George, but she didn’t get a tombstone because her children refused to pay for one. There’s a written epitaph in the record instead and hers is even better. “George was lusty, coarse and evil, He gave me pox, he’s with the devil.” Short, and to the point. George’s was ridiculously hypocritical by contrast.’

  ‘It all depends who George thought his creator was,’ said Charlie. ‘Perhaps it was his mother he wanted to take to hell with him.’

  Idly Jack traced a triangle on the surface of the table. ‘Who told you Mathilda had an adopted son? Someone reliable, I hope, because you’re building a hell of a castle on their information.’

  Jones caught Cooper’s eye, but ignored the warning frown. As Cooper said, their chances of respecting Jane Marriott’s confidences were thin. ‘Mrs Jane Marriott, whose husband was the boy’s father.’

  ‘Ah, well, a very reliable source then.’ He saw the gleam of excitement in the Inspector’s eyes and smiled with genuine amusement. ‘Mathilda was not my mother, Inspector. If she had been I’d have been thrilled. I loved the woman.’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘Then Mrs Gillespie lied about having a son, and it’s your wife who’s Cordelia. It has to be one or other of you or she wouldn’t have made that will. She wasn’t going to make Lear’s mistake and bequeath her estate to the undeserving daughters.’

  Jack looked as if he were about to deny it, then shrugged. ‘I imagine Mathilda told Jane Marriott it was a boy out of spite. She never referred to her by name, always called her that “prissy creature at the surgery”. It was cruel of her, but then Mathilda was usually cruel. She was a deeply unhappy woman.’ He paused to collect his thoughts. ‘She told me about her affair with Paul after I’d finished her portrait. She said there was something missing from the painting, and that that something was guilt. She was absolutely racked with it. Guilt for having given up the baby, guilt for not being able to cope, guilt for blaming the second baby’s adoption on Joanna’s crying, ultimately, I suppose, guilt for her inability to feel affection.’ Briefly he fell silent again. ‘Then Sarah turned up out of the blue and Mathilda recognized her.’ He saw the look of incredulity on Charlie Jones’s face. ‘Not immediately and not as the baby she’d given away, but gradually as the months went by. There were so many things that matched. Sarah was the right age, her birthday was the same day as the baby’s birthday, her parents had lived in the same borough in London where Mathilda’s flat was. Most importantly she thought she detected a likeness in Sarah’s and Joanna’s mannerisms. She said they had the same smile, the same way of inclining their heads, the same trick of looking at you intently while you speak. And from the start Sarah took Mathilda as she found her, of course, the way she takes everyone, and for the first time in years Mathilda felt valued. It was a very potent cocktail. Mathilda was so convinced she’d found her lost daughter that she approached me and commissioned me to paint the portrait.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I thought my luck had changed but all she wanted, of course, was an excuse to find out more about Sarah from the only person available who knew anything of value.’

  ‘But you didn’t know that while you were painting her?’

  ‘No. I did wonder why she was so interested in us both, what our parents were like, where they came from, if we had brothers and sisters, whether or not I got on with my in-laws. She didn’t confine herself to Sarah, you see. If she had, I might have been suspicious. As it was, when she finally told me that Sarah was her lost child, I was appalled.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘I knew she couldn’t be because Sarah wasn’t adopted.’

  ‘Surely that was the first thing Mrs Gillespie asked you?’

  ‘Not in so many words, no. She never put anything as directly as that.’ He shrugged again in the face of the Inspector’s scepticism. ‘You’re forgetting that no one in Fontwell knew about this child, except Jane Marriott, and Mathilda was far too proud to give the rest of the village a glimpse of her clay feet. She was looking for a private atonement, not a public one. The closest we ever came to it was when she asked me if Sarah had a good relationship with her mother and I said, no, because they had nothing in common. I can even remember the words I used. I said: “I’ve often wondered if Sarah was adopted because the only explanation for the disparity between the two of them in looks, words and deeds is that they aren’t related.” I was being flippant, but Mathilda used it to build castles in the air. Rather as you’re doing at the moment, Inspector.’

  ‘But she’d made up her mind before you started painting that portrait, Mr Blakeney. If I remember correctly she began consulting Mr Duggan about the will in August.’

  ‘It was like a faith,’ said Jack simply. ‘I can’t explain it any other way. She needed to make amends to the child who’d had nothing, and Sarah had to be that child. The fact that the ages, birthdays and mannerisms were pure coincidence was neither here nor there. Mathilda had made up her mind and all she wanted from me was the gaps filled in.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘If I’d known sooner, then I’d have disabused her, but I didn’t know, and all I achieved, quite unwittingly, was to fuel the belief.’

  ‘Does Dr Blakeney know any of this?’

  ‘No. Mathilda was adamant she never should. She made me promise to keep it to myself – she was terrified Sarah would treat her differently, stop liking her, even reject her completely – and I thought, thank God, because this way no one gets hurt.’ He rubbed a hand across his face. ‘I didn’t know what to do, you see, and I needed time to work out how to let Mathilda down gently. If I’d told her the truth, there and then, it would have been like taking the baby away from her all over again.’

  ‘When was this, Mr Blakeney?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘About two weeks before she died.’

  ‘Why did she tell you, if she didn’t want anyone to know?’

  Jack didn’t answer immediately. ‘It was the portrait,’ he said after a moment. ‘I took it round to show it to her. I still had some work to do on it but I wanted to see what her reaction was so that I could paint that into the picture. I’ve had some amazing responses in the past: anger, shock, vanity, irritation, disappointment. I record them all beneath my signature so that anyone who understands the code will know what the subject thought about my treatment of his or her personality. It’s a sort of visual joke. Mathilda’s reaction was intense grief. I’ve never seen anyone so upset.’

  ‘She didn’t like it?’ suggested Charlie.

  ‘The exact opposite. She was weeping for the woman she might have been.’ His eyes clouded in reflection. ‘She said I was the first person who had ever shown her compassion.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Jack glanced across at the Sergeant who was still sitting staring at the floor. ‘Tommy does,’ he said
. ‘Don’t you, my old friend?’

  There was a brief pause before Cooper raised his head. ‘The gold at the heart of the picture,’ he murmured. ‘That was Mathilda as she was in the beginning before events took over and destroyed her.’

  Jack’s dark eyes rested on him with affection. ‘Goddammit, Tommy,’ he said, ‘how come I’m the only one to appreciate your qualities? Does anything escape you?’

  When I told Father I was pregnant, he fainted. It was an extraordinary example of craven cowardice. Gerald, by contrast, was rather pleased. ‘Is it mine, Matty?’ he asked. Perhaps I should have been offended, but I wasn’t. I found his delight in what he’d achieved rather touching.

  Father is all for an abortion, of course, and not just because of the potential scandal. He says the baby will be even more of an imbecile than Gerald. I have refused. Nothing will induce me to go near a backstreet abortionist which is all Father is offering me. He says he knows of somebody in London who will do it for a small fee, but I don’t trust him an inch and will not entrust my life to some incompetent woman with knitting needles and gin. In any case, if the child’s as defective as Father’s suggesting, then it will not survive long. Gerald is only with us in all conscience because his silly mother nursed him devotedly for years.

  Every cloud has its silver lining. Gerald has never been easier to manage than he is at the moment. The knowledge that I am carrying his baby has wiped all memories of Grace from his mind. It means I shall have to marry to give the baby legitimacy, but James Gillespie is tiresome in his approaches, and will marry me tomorrow if I agree. Father says James is homosexual and needs a wife to give himself respectability, but as I need a husband for the same reason, I can no doubt tolerate him for the few months till the baby’s born.

  I have told Father to put a brave face on it, something the silly man is incapable of doing, and to let me and James have the use of his flat in London. Once the baby is born I shall return home. Father will stay at his club on the rare – now, very rare – occasions when he is sober enough to attend a debate at the House. He wept his drunken tears this evening and said I was unnatural, claiming all he had ever wanted me to do was be sweet to Gerald and keep him happy.

  But it was Grace who introduced Gerald to sex, not I, and Father knows it. And how was I supposed to keep a sexually active imbecile happy? By playing bridge? By discussing Plato? Dear God, but I have such contempt for men. Perhaps I am unnatural . . .

  Eighteen

  JONES DRUMMED his fingers impatiently on the table. ‘You told the Sergeant you were with an actress in Stratford the night Mrs Gillespie was murdered. You weren’t. We’ve checked. Miss Bennedict said’ – he consulted a piece of paper – ‘she’d see you in hell before she allowed you near her again.’

  ‘True.’ He gave an amiable grin. ‘She didn’t like the portrait I did of her. She’s had it in for me ever since.’

  ‘Then why give her as your alibi?’

  ‘Because I’d already told Sarah that’s where I was, and she was listening when the Sergeant asked me.’

  Charlie frowned but let this pass. ‘Where were you then, if you weren’t in Stratford?’

  ‘Cheltenham.’ He linked his hands behind his neck and stared at the ceiling.

  ‘Can you prove it?’

  ‘Yes.’ He reeled off a phone number. ‘Sarah’s father’s house. He will confirm that I was there from six o’clock on the Friday evening until midday on the Sunday.’ He flicked a lazy glance at the Inspector. ‘He’s a JP, so you can be fairly sure he won’t be lying.’

  ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘I went on the off-chance that he had something I could show Mathilda that would prove Sarah wasn’t her daughter. I knew I could talk fairly freely without him blabbing about it. If I’d approached her mother, she’d have been on the phone to Sarah like a shot and then the cat would have been out of the bag with Sarah demanding to know why I wanted proof she wasn’t adopted. By the same token, she’d have asked me why I was going to see her father, so I told her I was staying with Sally to put her off the scent.’ He looked suddenly pensive. ‘Not the most intelligent thing I’ve ever done.’

  Charlie ignored this. ‘Did her father give you proof?’

  ‘No. He said he hadn’t got anything and that I’d have to talk to her mother. I was planning to bite the bullet and go the next weekend, but, by the Monday, Mathilda was dead and it didn’t matter any more.’

  ‘And you still haven’t told your wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I promised Mathilda I wouldn’t,’ he said evenly. ‘If she’d wanted Sarah to know what she believed, she’d have told her herself on the video.’

  ‘Any idea why she didn’t?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Because she wasn’t going to tell her in life either, I suppose. She had too many secrets which she thought would be exposed if she claimed Sarah as her own – and let’s face it, she was right. Look what Tommy’s unearthed already.’

  ‘It would have been unearthed anyway. People were bound to ask questions the minute they heard she’d left her money to her doctor.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t have expected the police to be asking them because she didn’t know she was going to be murdered. And, as far as I can make out, from what Sarah has told me of the video, she did the best she could to warn Joanna and Ruth off putting in a counter-claim by dropping enough heavy hints about their lifestyles to give Sarah’s barrister a field day if the thing ever went to court.’ He shrugged again. ‘The only reason either of them feels confident about challenging it now is because Mathilda was murdered. Whatever they’ve done pales into insignificance beside that.’

  Cooper rumbled into life behind him. ‘But the video is full of lies, particularly in relation to her uncle and her husband. Mrs Gillespie implies she was the victim of them both, but Mrs Marriott tells a very different story. She describes a woman who was ruthless enough to use blackmail and murder when it suited her. So which is true?’

  Jack swung round to look at him. ‘I don’t know. Both probably. She wouldn’t be the first victim to strike back.’

  ‘What about this business of her uncle’s feeble-mindedness? She described him on the video as a drunken brute who raped her when she was thirteen, yet Mrs Marriott says he was rather pathetic. Explain that.’

  ‘I can’t. Mathilda never talked to me about it. All I know is that she was deeply scarred by her inability to love and when I showed her the portrait with the scarring represented by the scold’s bridle, she burst into tears and said I was the first person to show her any compassion. I chose to interpret that as meaning that I was the first person to see her as a victim, but I could have been wrong. You’ll have to make up your own mind.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have to if we could find her diaries,’ said Cooper.

  Jack didn’t say anything and the room fell silent with only the whirr of the tape to disturb the complete bafflement that at least two of those present were experiencing. Jones, who had approached this interview in the confident expectation that Jack Blakeney would spend tonight in a police cell, was falling prey to the same crippling ambivalence that Cooper had always felt towards this man.

  ‘Why did you tell Mrs Lascelles this morning that you murdered her mother if you already had an alibi for the night Mrs Gillespie died?’ he asked at last, rustling the papers in front of him.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘She says in this report that you did.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘She says you did.’

  ‘She said what she believed. That’s a different thing entirely.’

  Jones pondered for a moment. He had a nasty feeling that he would receive almost as dusty an answer to his next question, but he put it anyway. ‘Why did you try to murder Mrs Lascelles?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘She says, and I’m quoting, “Jack Blakeney forced me against the wall and started to strangle me. If Violet hadn’t int
errupted him, he’d have killed me.” Is she lying?’

  ‘No. She’s telling you what she believes.’

  ‘But it’s not true.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You weren’t trying to strangle her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have to tell you, Mr Blakeney, that according to this report she had the marks of a stranglehold on her neck when the car that answered the nine–nine–nine call arrived at Cedar House. Therefore someone did try to strangle her, and she says that someone was you.’ He paused, inviting Jack to answer. When he didn’t, he tried a different approach. ‘Were you in Cedar House at approximately ten thirty this morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you put your hand about Mrs Joanna Lascelles’s throat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she justified in believing that you were trying to strangle her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you trying to strangle her?’

  ‘Then explain it to me. What the hell were you doing?’

  ‘Showing you lot where you’ve been going wrong again. Mind you, it’s not the most sensible thing I’ve done, and I wouldn’t have done it at all if I hadn’t been so pissed off by that jerk of an Inspector last night.’ His eyes narrowed angrily at the memory. ‘I don’t give a toss about myself, matter of fact I rather hope he decides to prosecute and give me my day in court, but I do care about Sarah and I care very much indeed at the moment about Ruth. He treated them both like shit and I made up my mind then that enough was enough. Joanna’s past saving, I suspect, but her daughter isn’t, and I want the poor kid free to put this bloody awful mess behind her.’ He took a deep angry breath. ‘So I sat up last night and did what you should have done, worked out who killed Mathilda and why. And believe me it wasn’t difficult.’