Suspicious Death

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘Have you any particular favourite yourself?’

  ‘Not really. Marcia always did have a talent for putting people’s backs up. Well no, that isn’t strictly true. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she always did have a complete disregard for other people’s feelings. Anyway, I never could understand why she was so popular.’

  The door had opened and Mrs Pringle came in, pushing a trolley. ‘She certainly wasn’t popular when she first started school, remember. For two or three years she was practically an outcast. I used to feel so sorry for her …’ She handed out coffee, freshly filtered by the smell of it, and homemade biscuits with cherries in the middle.

  ‘Why?’ said Lineham.

  Mrs Pringle lowered herself carefully into the orthopaedic chair and picked up her coffee. ‘Various reasons, really. I suppose chiefly because of her father. He used to beat her mother up, you know. And if Marcia got in the way … Many’s the time I’ve seen that child come to school covered in bruises.’

  ‘Wasn’t he reported to the NSPCC?’

  ‘Oh yes. They were always hovering around in the background. But Marcia was never taken into care or anything like that. It wasn’t the kind of deliberate and persistent cruelty you hear so much of these days, but all the same … I often used to think how much she must dread Friday nights, when he got his pay packet and headed straight for the Door.’

  ‘And of course, she was badly undernourished, wasn’t she, Gwen?’ said Pringle. ‘There was never enough money left over for food. Marcia didn’t qualify for free school dinners because theoretically at least her father earned enough to pay for them. So I think she lived chiefly on bread and margarine – if she was lucky. She used to bring a bread and marge sandwich to school for her dinner and quite often she’d hide behind her desk lid to eat it before school, she was so hungry. And then, of course, she’d have nothing to eat all day and precious little to look forward to when she got home from school at night … She used to look so pasty and unhealthy. We resorted to all sorts of stratagems for slipping her food on the quiet, so that she wouldn’t be too shamed in front of the other kids, didn’t we Gwen?’

  Mrs Pringle wrinkled her nose. ‘And she used to smell! I don’t think her mother ever bothered to bathe her or change her knickers. And you know how cruel kids can be … In the end I resorted to buying half a dozen pairs of knickers for her myself and putting a clean pair on her each morning when she got to school. We never had any children ourselves, and it really used to upset me seeing that poor little scrap treated as a pariah through no fault of her own.’

  No wonder Marcia had been so determined to succeed, thought Thanet. That sort of childhood puts grit into the soul.

  ‘Didn’t her mother care?’ said Lineham.

  ‘I think Mrs Carter was so browbeaten she’d given up caring about anything. You should have seen the state their house was in, in those days! Honestly, it seems a terrible thing to say, but it was a blessing for her when her husband was killed in that accident. After that, she was a changed woman. But that wasn’t till much later, after Marcia was married. She married very young, of course. Couldn’t wait to get away from home.’

  ‘What you’re saying doesn’t exactly square with her being popular,’ said Thanet.

  ‘Oh, that was later,’ said Pringle.

  ‘After we’d done something about it,’ said his wife. ‘It was obvious things weren’t going to improve at home, and in the end Gerald had this brilliant idea. When Marcia was about eight, old enough to bathe herself, he had a hygiene campaign at school. He got the health visitor to come and talk to the children, sent out leaflets to all the parents, that sort of thing. Well Marcia was no fool and the message got through. Before long the improvement in her was noticeable. She was clean, she didn’t smell, she even managed to wash her hair and come to school in clean clothes. We were thrilled to bits, weren’t we? She looked a different child. And it was interesting to see how the other children reacted. It was such a transformation they didn’t quite know what to make of it. At first they just sort of circled around, keeping their distance, then they began to make little approaches …’

  ‘How did Marcia react?’

  ‘Very wary at first, wasn’t she, Gerald? Suspicious. And off-hand, always off-hand. I think that was what intrigued them, the fact that she didn’t seem eager to welcome their advances. In the end she had them vying for her favours. Extraordinary, wasn’t it, Gerald?’

  ‘Fascinating.’

  Not so surprising, really, thought Thanet. He’d seen it so often before, the self-centred person who has everyone running around in circles trying to please him, and gets away with it every time. But in Marcia’s case understandable, surely. When life is as difficult as hers had been, the one thing that matters is self-preservation. Ironic that in the end it could perhaps have been this very trait which destroyed her.

  ‘Forgive my asking, Mrs Pringle, but you talk as if you were very much involved with the life of the school. Did you teach there too?’

  She laughed, the rosy cheeks bunching up to look more apple-like than ever, and glanced at her husband.

  Pringle shook his head. ‘No, she didn’t. But in those days we lived in the school house, which was part of the school building. Now, of course, like so many other village schools, it’s been converted into a private home. A crying shame, I think. The old village schools were so much the heart of the community. Like the church, they linked village people in a way that no one at the time quite understood. Practically every household in the village used to have a child or a grandchild or a niece or a nephew at the school and even if they didn’t everyone certainly knew at least one child who attended it, probably more. When they closed down, something crucial to village life was lost. Anyway, in those days, as I say, the headmaster’s house was part of the school building and the headmaster’s wife couldn’t have got away from the children even if she’d wanted to. She was surrounded by them all day long and knew them as well as the staff did.’

  Lineham said, ‘When the other children had got used to this transformation you were talking about, did Marcia end up with her own special little group of friends?’

  ‘Her own “gang”, you mean? Yes, there were four of them.’ Pringle ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Edith Phipps, Reg Hammer, Grace Gates – Grace Trimble, she is now – and Henry Gates, Grace’s brother.’

  ‘What happened to Henry?’ said Lineham. ‘Is he still around?’

  ‘Ah, well, that was rather sad,’ said Pringle. ‘No, he’s not. No thanks, love, not for me.’ He shook his head at his wife, who was offering more coffee, waited while she refilled Lineham’s cup, handed another biscuit to Thanet. Pringle’s pipe was drawing well, Thanet noticed enviously.

  ‘What happened to him?’ said Lineham.

  ‘Predictably, he fell in love with Marcia. This was much later, of course, when they were in their teens. At first they were all just friends, kids playing together. Edith’s father was head gardener up at the Manor, and the five of them used to spend a lot of time in the Manor grounds. They used to keep well out of the way of the owners, of course, but as you can imagine they were the envy of all the other kids in the village for enjoying this privilege. And you’d often see the three girls around together, or the two boys. But of course, as they became adolescents, sex raised its ugly head and altered things between them. First Edith fell for Henry. They went out together for, oh, around six months, wouldn’t you say, Gwen?’

  ‘Something like that. The trouble was it was one-sided, really. Henry just went along with it, but it was Edith who was really smitten.’ Mrs Pringle sighed and brushed some biscuit crumbs off her ample lap. ‘Poor Edith, I don’t think she ever got over it.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Henry then fell for Marcia, in a big way.’

  ‘Marcia shouldn’t have encouraged him,’ Mrs Pringle said tartly.

  ‘Wouldn’t have made any difference. He’d have left Edith anyway.’

  ‘Still, Marc
ia was supposed to be Edith’s friend. It was all such a pity. As you can imagine, Inspector, Edith hasn’t had much of a life, looking after her mother all these years. Henry Gates was the one bright spot in it. And,’ she added indignantly, ‘it wasn’t even as if Marcia really wanted him. The minute a better prospect came along, she dropped him like a hot potato.’

  ‘Which is rather a circuitous route to answering your question, Sergeant,’ said Pringle. ‘Henry Gates left the village when Marcia threw him over, and never came back.’

  ‘And it wasn’t just Edith who was upset,’ said Mrs Pringle. ‘Grace, his sister, was in a terrible state too. Their father had died not long before and their mother had died when they were thirteen or fourteen. So when Henry went off she was left entirely on her own.’

  ‘And Reg Hammer wasn’t too pleased, either. He and Henry had been bosom pals for years. He never did find another friend, and until he moved away he used to hang around the village looking like a lost sheep.’

  ‘Henry was such a good-looking boy,’ said Mrs Pringle reminiscently. ‘Not like Reg. A great lump of a boy Reg was, wasn’t he?’

  Pringle laid his pipe down in the ashtray. ‘And he hasn’t changed much, so far as I can see. Always had a foul temper, too … Inspector, while we’ve been sitting here I’ve been wondering … Why did you come to see us? I can’t imagine that all this stuff that happened thirty-odd years ago is relevant to Marcia’s death last Tuesday.’

  ‘Background,’ said Thanet. ‘I’m trying to understand what sort of a person Marcia was, and you’ve helped me immensely.’ He stood up. ‘Thank you, both of you.’ He smiled at Mrs Pringle. ‘The homemade biscuits were delicious.’ He glanced at Lineham, who was still sitting down. ‘Sergeant? There’s something else you want to ask?’

  Lineham was going pink. ‘Er … yes, sir. But it’s nothing to do with work.’

  Thanet grinned and Pringle beamed. ‘You’d like to come back and take a closer look at my railway! Any time, Sergeant, any time.’

  Thanet was anxious to be off. His hand was in his pocket, closed around the comforting familiarity of the bowl of his pipe. He was itching to take it out and smoke it. And it was lunchtime, possibly a good time to catch Grace Trimble at home, the only person in that little group that he had not yet met – apart from her absent brother, of course. Lineham was still talking and Thanet gave him an unobtrusive nudge. Come on.

  He was eager to see if Grace lived up to her name. As mother of the luscious Josie she might well be something rather special.

  TWENTY-THREE

  But the genes which had given her brother and daughter their good looks had unfortunately passed Grace Trimble by. She was a tall, big-boned woman with dowdy clothes, a dour expression and prematurely greying hair scraped back into a bun. And she looked strong, easily strong enough to have miscalculated a push in anger and sent Marcia slipping backwards on the icy road through that fatal gap in the parapet.

  As soon as he saw her, Thanet’s pre-conceived notion of Josie as a spoiled only child and of her mother as a weak, somewhat hysterical single parent had disappeared. Far more likely, he thought, that Josie had been over-protected and suppressed and was now busy kicking over the traces.

  After waving them into armchairs in the bleak sitting-room where they had interviewed Josie the previous day, Grace Trimble picked up a small upright chair which stood against the wall and placed it in front of the fireplace in the exact centre of the fawn hearth rug. Then she sat down facing them, back ramrod straight, ankles crossed, hands folded in lap.

  And waited.

  Thanet was tempted to wait too, see which of them broke the silence first. But he wasn’t here to play games. It was irritating that she should have taken the psychological advantage by choosing an upright chair, but he had no intention of allowing himself to be disconcerted. Nor of being manipulated into going away without the information he came for.

  This woman intrigued him. He had the impression that she would lose her temper rarely, but that when she did the explosion would be all the more violent because of her habitually rigid self-control.

  And it was obvious that there was no point in beating about the bush.

  ‘I understand you paid a visit to the Manor on Tuesday evening, the night Mrs Salden died.’

  ‘What if I did?’ She was cold, hostile, her voice grating on his ear like over-smooth chalk on a blackboard.

  ‘Would you mind telling us of the purpose of that visit?’

  ‘Yes, I would mind. It was private business.’

  ‘Would it help if I told you that we already know why you went and what happened when you got there?’

  ‘If you know it all, why are you asking me about it?’

  ‘We would like to hear your side of the story, Mrs Trimble.’

  No response.

  ‘We’re only trying to understand it from your point of view.’

  ‘Understand? What is there for you to understand? It’s no business of yours.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Thanet softly, ‘but I’m afraid that’s where you could be wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her expression changed. ‘Nothing’s happened to Josie?’

  ‘No. Josie’s fine, so far as I know.’

  ‘Then what did you mean?’

  ‘Mrs Trimble, you may or may not realise that we are treating Mrs Salden’s death as suspicious. That means that we are not satisfied yet that it was an accident. Which in turn means that, until we are, we have to talk to all those people who could conceivably have had a reason for being glad she is dead.’

  ‘There’s no need to wrap it up. You’re saying it could be murder, and I’m a suspect.’

  ‘Possibly, yes.’

  Further silence. Thanet gave her a few moments to think about it, then said, ‘So if there’s anything you’d like to tell me …’

  ‘There’s not. You can think what you like.’

  Thanet tried another tack. ‘I understand you used to be quite friendly with Mrs Salden at one time, when you were children.’

  He saw at once that it had been the wrong thing to say. No doubt he had resurrected memories of the other injury Marcia had done her, in driving her brother away.

  ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.’

  He might as well accept that she wasn’t going to unbend. Extract as many facts as he could, then, and get out.

  ‘You left the Manor at around ten past ten on Tuesday evening, I believe.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘What time did you arrive home?’

  She shrugged. Twenty to half-past ten, I suppose. I don’t know. I didn’t look at the clock. No reason to.’

  ‘Which way did you go up to the Manor? Alone the main drive, or along the footpath?’

  ‘Along the footpath.’

  ‘And you came back …?’

  ‘The same way.’

  ‘Did you see anyone, either on your way up or on your way back?’

  Thanet had given up hoping for anything interesting to emerge during this interview. Grace Trimble’s next words were therefore all the more a shock.

  ‘Only Harry Greenleaf.’

  Greenleaf, the suspect with perhaps the most powerful motive of all! Thanet resisted the temptation to look at Lineham. He knew that the Sergeant would be remembering what they’d been saying only a couple of hours ago.

  ‘In fact, the only suspect who doesn’t seem to have been around at the right time is Harry Greenleaf.’

  ‘The way things are going, I shouldn’t count on it.’

  It was an effort to keep his voice casual. ‘I see. And was this on the way up, or …?’

  ‘On the way back.’

  ‘And where, exactly, did you see him?’

  ‘He was standing on the bridge, looking at the river.’

  ‘Leaning on the parapet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On which side?’

  ‘The far side.’

  ‘By “far side”, you mean the oppos
ite side from the broken parapet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure it was Greenleaf?’

  ‘Certain. He was wearing that balaclava thing he always wears when he comes into the village.’

  An excellent disguise, thought Thanet, if someone else had wanted to give the impression that Greenleaf was abroad that night. But that would imply premeditation, and he had been certain all along that this had been a crime of impulse, if crime it was. Marcia had simply been unlucky. Time, circumstance and contiguity had conspired to produce a fatal result.

  ‘When he heard me step on to the road he glanced over his shoulder and then slipped away, quick as a flash. He doesn’t like meeting people, does Harry.’ And I don’t blame him, her expression said.

  ‘In that case, it’s surprising he hadn’t gone before you got to the top of the steps,’ said Lineham. ‘He must have heard you coming.’

  She was shaking her head. ‘He wouldn’t have heard me earlier because I was walking on grass. And while I was climbing the steps a couple of cars went over the bridge.’

  ‘Rich pickings,’ said Lineham, when they were outside. ‘Though it’s a pity those car drivers haven’t come forward.’

  Appeals had been put out on TVS and Radio Kent.

  ‘Yes. Not that this information about Greenleaf really makes much difference in practical terms. We’re no nearer to proving anything.’

  ‘We do now know that Greenleaf was lying, when he said he didn’t go out that night.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So are we going to see him next?’

  ‘Who else? But we’ll get something to eat at the Crooked Door first.’

  They got into the car and headed for the pub, but halfway through the village Thanet said, ‘Just a minute. Pull in, will you?’

  They had stopped in front of what was recognisably once the school, though there were curtains at the windows and the playground had became a lawn, surrounded by flower borders. Thanet guessed that the projecting arm of the ‘L’ had once been the school house, where the Pringles lived.

  ‘Pringle’s right, it’s a shame so many village schools have closed down.’