Loretta Lawson 01 - A Masculine Ending

by Joan Smith

  A few minutes later, she was standing in front of a shelf stacked with yearly editions of the book. At random, she lifted down the volume for 1977. She quickly found Puddephat, William Hugh. His address that year was the Red House, Hallborough, Oxon. There was also a telephone number. Loretta noted both in the back of her diary, and put the book back. She checked 1980. The address remained the same. She tried 1981. The only address shown was that of the college. The marriage must have broken up some time in 1980. She hoped Veronica Puddephat had not moved out of the Red House after the separation.

  Feeling pleased with herself, Loretta went back to her office. She filled in the columns next to Veronica’s name, and stared thoughtfully at the piece of paper. All she needed now was an excuse to contact her. She was disappointed to find that nothing came immediately to mind. How much easier it would be if she were a newspaper reporter, like Tracey, she thought. It was the perfect excuse for ringing up complete strangers and asking all sort of personal questions. But did she dare impersonate a journalist? No, she didn’t. It would only take one phone call to blow her cover. She wondered if she could stage an apparently accidental meeting with Veronica. She could not think of any means of doing it without involving Andrew. She was still no further forward. Perhaps the best course was simply to come clean - to explain how she came to be involved in the case, and enlist Veronica’s help? Loretta was not enthusiastic. It would mean putting herself in the hands of a complete stranger, a stranger who might even be involved in Puddephat’s murder. After all, Veronica’s request to use the flat in rue Roland two months before the murder, and the odd business with the keys afterwards, remained unexplained. Now there was an idea! Veronica had been to the flat: wasn’t it possible she might have left something behind which Loretta could claim to have found? A moment’s thought told her it wasn’t. Andrew was not even sure that Veronica had used the flat. It sounded as if her plans had changed at the last minute and, embarrassed by all the trouble Andrew had gone to on her behalf, she had taken the easy way out by returning the keys without a message.

  But what about Puddephat himself? How about telling Veronica she had found something in rue Roland which belonged to her husband, and asking if she could return it? That was a much better plan. She mulled over what the object might be. She remembered the book she had found in the flat, but rejected it. It would have to be something of value to justify her going to all this trouble. A wallet? But a wallet would contain all sorts of personal items which she couldn’t get hold of. The same went for a diary, or an address book. Then she saw the major snag with the whole idea. The point was that she - and the killer - were the only people who knew Puddephat had been to the flat at all. If she went to Veronica with this story, she might as well tell her the complete truth.

  It was back to square one. She wondered if she should consult Bridget. After all, Bridget had put her in touch with Geoffrey, and Geoffrey had got her into Puddephaf’s rooms. Loretta pushed her hair back from her face with a cluck of impatience. What an idiot she was! What was wrong with the excuse she had used to Geoffrey: that she was trying to retrieve a set of her own notes from Puddephat. There was no reason why she should know that Veronica was separated from her husband. She could simply ring Veronica - no, it would be better to go and see her - and explain her supposed problem. If she had come all the way from London, the woman was hardly likely to turn her away. It was simple! How soon could she do it?

  Loretta took out her diary, and looked at her schedule for the week. She could just about manage Thursday, she thought. But that was no good - what if Veronica worked? It would be safer to try over a weekend. Saturday looked clear. It would also be better from the point of view of traffic - she hadn’t yet looked up Hallborough on a map, but she guessed she would need her car to get to it.

  It wasn’t until Thursday that it occurred to Loretta that if she was going near Oxford, she might as well call in on Bridget. She might even be able to stay at her friend’s house on Saturday night.

  That evening, she rang Bridget at home, and explained what she was up to. She was very welcome to stay on Saturday night, Bridget said, although she herself was going to the Oxford Playhouse. ‘Why don’t you stay Sunday as well?’ Bridget asked. ‘I’m having a little party for my tutees. Geoffrey will be there as well, and a couple of my postgraduates.’ Loretta was able to refuse, mindful of a 10 a.m. lecture on Monday, when Bridget added: ‘I’ll tell you who else is going to be there. The mysterious R. At least, it turns out it isn’t R.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Loretta interrupted. ‘I’m not following this.’ Bridget knew how important it was to find the author of the letter. Why hadn’t she got in touch with Loretta straight away? It didn’t make sense.

  ‘His real name is Jamie Baird,’ Bridget explained patiently. ‘He’s in his second year, and Puddephat was his tutor last year. Although the second- and third-years don’t officially come back until next week, Puddephat’s tutees have been called back early so they can be allocated to new people quickly. I’ve got him. The faculty’s worried about the effect on their studies, you see. I’ve taken three of them, and one of them is this Jamie Baird. The name meant nothing to me, of course, but I recognized him as soon as he walked into my room this morning. I realized then that we’d been barking up the wrong tree.’ Loretta’s baffled silence prompted Bridget to a further attempt at elucidation. ‘Remember the photo, the one you found in Puddephat’s rooms? And we thought the boy in it was R? Well, he isn’t. He’s called Jamie Baird. Now d’you see?’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ Loretta demanded. ‘Even if this boy, Jamie, didn’t write the letter, he might know who did. Who R is, I mean. I must talk to him!’

  ‘So come to my party on Sunday,’ Bridget said. ‘He’ll be there. Though I don’t know why you think he’s so important, now we’ve discovered he isn’t R. Just because he was Puddephat’s tutee, it doesn’t mean he knew him terribly well. We all have a couple of dozen tutees - surely you’re not planning to interrogate every one of Puddephat’s?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Loretta said impatiently. ‘You’re forgetting where we found the photograph. It was hidden at the bottom of a drawer, remember. You can’t tell me there isn’t something odd about that. Either Jamie Baird was particularly close to Puddephat, or Puddephat wanted him to be. That’s what makes Jamie worth seeing. This is a terrific piece of luck, Bridget.’

  ‘I’m not convinced,’ Bridget said. ‘There could be other explanations for the photograph. Perhaps Jamie dropped it on a visit to Puddephat’s rooms, and Puddephat put it in a drawer until he saw him again. But I’m not trying to dampen your enthusiasm. What time shall I expect you on Saturday?’

  Two letters were lying in the hall when Loretta got up on Saturday. She studied the envelopes as she wandered into the kitchen to make breakfast. One contained the proofs of an article she had written for an academic journal; she scanned the contents of the envelope briefly and pinned it to her noticeboard to be dealt with on her return from Oxford. It took her a moment to recognize the handwriting on the second envelope and when she did, she put it down while she plugged in the kettle and took a croissant from the breadbin. She had a good idea of what the envelope would contain, and she was already feeling faintly irritated. She placed the croissant under the grill, and sat down to open the letter.

  It was written on House of Commons notepaper, and folded around a duplicated sheet of paper. ‘Dear Loretta,’ she read, ‘I’ve just come back from an official trip to Italy, and I squeezed in a visit to a peace camp while I was there. I thought the enclosed would interest you.’ Unfolding the notice, she found it was a call to Italian women to demonstrate at the NATO base where the camp had been set up. She turned back to the letter. The rest of the message consisted of a single word: ‘Dinner?’ She raised her eyebrows. Last weekend Tracey had tried to resurrect his relationship with her, now it was Anthony Swan. You had to give Anthony top marks for persistence, she thought to herself. She had told
him in no uncertain terms, on more than one occasion, that she wanted no more to do with him. Yet every six months or so he found another excuse to get in touch with her. She supposed you had to be pretty thick-skinned to be a Member of Parliament. She screwed up the letter and dropped it into the kitchen bin. She had not replied to any of his earlier messages, and she would not respond to this one. She knew that if she kept the note, she might be tempted. She had liked Anthony a great deal and, at this distance in time, the attractions of her affair with him were easier to remember than the drawbacks. The latter had included, she reminded herself sternly, his insistence on secrecy, her guilt at deceiving his wife, and the discovery that he was simultaneously conducting two other clandestine affairs. She was glad she had a busy weekend in front of her, and little time to brood.

  An hour later, she climbed into her Panda and set off for Oxford. Hallborough was five miles north-west of the city, and she thought she should be there by noon. It was a beautiful autumn day, clear and cold, and she swept along the M40 listening to a tape of Grace Jones on the cassette player. As she approached the Princes Risborough turn-off, and the section of the road which cuts through high chalk cliffs, she changed the tape for a glorious version of Tosca. She was filled with a sense of well-being which augured well, she thought, for the success of her journey.

  Hallborough turned out to be a picturesque Cotswold village with one main street. Loretta drove slowly, peering from side to side for a glimpse of the Red House. If it lived up to its name, she thought, it should stick out like a sore thumb among the warm, yellowish stone of the other buildings. She saw three public houses and a shop selling papers, but nothing that looked a likely candidate. The houses began to peter out, and eventually stopped. Loretta decided she had gone far enough, and used the beginning of a farm track to turn the car in. Back in the village, she pulled up outside the paper shop, which turned out to double as a general store, and went in. Her friendly enquiry as to the whereabouts of the Red House was met by a hostile stare from the woman behind the counter. Nonplussed, Loretta explained that she had driven right through the village without finding it. The expression of the shop assistant was making her most uncomfortable. Finally, the woman appeared to relent. The house, she admitted grudgingly, could be found by driving through the village and taking a narrow turning to the left. Loretta would be able to recognize the road by the high hedges which flanked it. She thanked the woman and returned to her car. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if the woman might have given her deliberately wrong directions but, shrugging the thought away, she started the car and turned back in the direction from which she had just come.

  About two hundred yards from the village, she spotted the turning. The road was wide enough for only one vehicle at a time, and she hoped she wouldn’t meet another car. The tall hedge to her left suddenly gave way to a low brick wall, and she found herself driving past the Red House. Her assumption had been correct: its identity was as apparent from the colour of the bricks as from the nameplate on the gate. She stopped, then reversed back a few feet until she could turn into the open gateway. Her heart leaped into her mouth, and she paused. It was one thing imagining the scene from the comfort of her London flat but quite another to find herself going through with it. It occurred to her that she didn’t even know that it was Veronica’s house; why on earth hadn’t she checked Directory Enquiries to make sure she was still living there? She heard the sound of another car behind her, and saw that she was blocking the narrow road. She turned into the drive of the Red House, and brought the car to a halt close to the front door.

  The house was more modern than she had expected - at a guess, she thought it must have been built between the wars. It was large and double-fronted, and conspicuously well kept. The front door was painted a shiny black, and the brass knocker gleamed spotlessly. There was no sign of a bell. Loretta got out of her car, walked up to the door, lifted the knocker and rapped timidly. Disliking the tentative sound she had made, she knocked again more forcefully. She listened intently for signs of life, but heard nothing.

  She stepped back and looked over the house. The windows stared blankly back at her. It occurred to her for the first time that there was no sign of a car, apart from her own. It seemed unlikely that anyone would choose to live in this out-of-the-way place without some form of transport - if she hadn’t been so nervous, that would have occurred to her earlier, she thought wryly. She concluded that Veronica Puddephat, if this was indeed her house, was out.

  She got back into her car, backed carefully out of the drive, and headed for Hallborough again. She spotted a telephone kiosk, and stopped to look in the telephone directory. There wasn’t one, and the phone was out of order except for emergency calls. Loretta swore under her breath. After her reception in the village store, she was not keen to go back with further questions to establish that Veronica still lived in the Red House. As she left the phone box, she looked up and down the street for other shops. There were none to be seen. All she was left with were the three pubs.

  The nearest, the Queen’s Head, was very much a brewery’s idea of what a traditional English pub should look like. Its sign consisted of a portrait of a woman’s head, styled in what she guessed was intended to be Tudor fashion. It might be any of the wives of Henry VIII, or Elizabeth I, or even Mary I. There were coaching lamps on either side of the main door, and uncomfortable rustic tables in front of the windows. On the other hand, it did have a sign saying ‘bar-food’, and Loretta realized she was quite hungry.

  She went inside, and was relieved to discover she was one of the first customers. She never felt entirely at ease on her own in pubs. Restaurants she didn’t mind, but in pubs she always felt too much at the mercy of predatory men. Here, however, she was alone apart from a couple of men seated on stools next to the bar, and a yellow Labrador slumbering at their feet. A handwritten menu stood on the bar. She studied it while waiting for someone to appear and serve her. She rejected the beef curry with rice as too much of an unknown quantity - full of apples and curry powder she suspected - and decided on the steak and kidney pie with chips. Nobody could do very much to a steak and kidney pie, she thought. A barmaid appeared, a woman in her mid-twenties with streaked blonde hair and tight jeans. Loretta gave her order, intending to tag her question about Veronica Puddephat on the end, but was baulked by the woman’s suggestive banter with the two men seated at the bar. Taking her glass of wine to a table near the fire, she decided the question could wait until her food turned up. The fire, which turned out to be the real thing and not the gas imitation she feared, gave out a welcoming warmth. Loretta took the Guardian from her bag and settled down to read it. She paid little attention when the door opened, and two more customers came in. It was only when they reached the bar and addressed the barmaid that Loretta began to take notice.

  ‘Mornin’, love. Two pints of your best, and have one yourself,’ one of them said in a loud voice. As the woman behind the bar began to pull the pints, he went on. ‘Wonder if you can help us, love. We’re looking for a Mrs Puddephat, lady who lives in the big red house down the road. Seems to have been some sort of mix-up. My mate and I’ve come all the way from London to see her, and she seems to have gone out.’

  ‘Friends of hers, are you?’ asked the barmaid.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed the man in the raincoat. ‘There’s been some sort of misunderstanding, that’s all it is. You don’t happen to have seen her, do you?’

  To his obvious surprise, the barmaid failed to rise to these friendly overtures. ‘Some mistake,’ the woman said, plonking the second pint down on the bar. ‘Gone to Spain for a couple of weeks, she has. P’raps she forgot you were coming? That’ll be one pound sixty-eight.’ She put the money in the till, walked to the other end of the bar, and began ostentatiously polishing glasses.

  The two newcomers exchanged glances, and picked up their beer. After a few half-hearted sips, one of them made a great show of looking at his watch, and put his glass down. ‘
Well, looks like we’ve had a wasted trip,’ he said with patently false bonhomie. ‘Might as well get back on the road. Thanks, miss.’ The two men left, closing the door noisily behind them.

  ‘Here, Sandra,’ said one of the regulars sitting at the bar, ‘first I’ve heard about Mrs P. going off to Spain. Seems a bit queer, with the body only just being found, an’ all that. You sure that’s where she’s gone?’

  “Course not,’ said Sandra, a huge smile on her face. ‘She hasn’t gone anywhere, not to my knowledge, anyway. I saw her in the paper shop this morning. I’m just sick of reporters tramping in and out, wanting to know her business. He must be the tenth this week. You can tell ‘em a mile off. They all wear those macs, and flash their money about. Bloody vultures.’

  Loretta breathed a huge sigh of relief. She had been quite taken in by Sandra’s invention. It also explained the hostility her questions about the Red House had aroused. It had not occurred to her that the newspapers might still be on the trail of Puddephat’s widow.

  Now that she started to think about it, she could guess what they were after. ‘Murdered Don: Tragic Wife Speaks’, perhaps. Or even ‘My Heartbreak, By Peer’s Daughter’. She applauded the barmaid’s methods of getting rid of them. As a bonus, she had got the information she needed without having to ask for it.

  She put down her newspaper as Sandra brought over the steak and kidney pie. It looked all right, although Loretta thought the china dish it came in was a bit unnecessary. Much cheered, she bit into the first forkful. The crust was piping hot, and the innards lukewarm. A microwave oven, Loretta guessed. She was on the verge of complaining to the barmaid, but decided that she was not all that hungry after all, and at least the chips were hot. They would see her through until the evening.