The Work of a Narrow Mind

by Faith Martin

  And she’d known nothing of it. Suspected nothing. The humiliation of that alone was enough to make her squirm, even now. How could she have been so bloody stupid? So wilfully blind?

  She’d been investigated too, and cleared. And, oddly enough, her own reputation hadn’t really suffered that much as a result. Her record in many ways spoke for itself and she’d had good guv’nors, who had stood by her.

  But although that was all many years in the past now, it still cast a long shadow, and she’d vowed – never again. Which was, perhaps, understandable. Marriage, she’d learned the hard way, was a minefield: men were untrustworthy. It simply wasn’t worth the hassle. That had always been her mantra. There had been a few (very few) scattered love affairs over the years – she was not a nun, after all – but she’d never seriously fallen for another man. She’d made damned sure she didn’t.

  Until now, it seemed.

  But did it really make sense to stick so religiously to her single way of life? The little voice of hope persisted in niggling away at her. Steven Crayle was so many miles away from Ronnie Greene they weren’t even in the same solar system. And the woman she’d been then, naïve, trusting, gullible and blinded by love’s young dream, bore no relation to the woman she was now. So why assume that taking another chance would automatically end in disaster?

  And yet … and yet…. The thought of actually remarrying gave her a severe case of the heebie-jeebies. Just why did Steven want to tie the knot anyway, she wondered crossly? Why couldn’t they just carry on as they were? Nowadays, nearly everybody simply remained partners. It was so much easier, and legally, far less messy. There were many advantages to just—

  ‘Can you just check the sat nav, guv?’ Jake Barnes’s voice suddenly and abruptly pulled her out of her funk. ‘I think the house must be up here on the right somewhere but I don’t know the village.’

  Hillary blinked and glanced around at the pleasant, tree-lined street that Jake had turned into. Not far from the market town of Witney, Minster Lovell overlooked a pretty valley. At this time of year though, the leaves were fast losing their leaves and becoming skeletal, and the grey, overcast sky felt oppressive and ominous.

  The houses here were detached, stone-built, sturdy-looking specimens. Mary Rose Perkins, daughter of a humble farm-labourer and his equally working-class wife, must have done well for herself.

  ‘Her second husband is part-owner of an accountancy business in Witney, guv,’ Jake Barnes said. He’d seen her looking around and mentally pricing up the real estate, and had read her mind. ‘Her first husband worked in a butcher shop, and they lived in a council estate in Bicester, where they bought up their two kids. They divorced not long after her mother died. Mary Rose then took a job as a secretary at the accountancy firm in Witney, and obviously caught the eye of Ewan Gentley, the senior partner. They’ve been married barely a year.’

  ‘Thanks for the background info,’ Hillary said. ‘Nice to see you’ve done your homework.’

  Jake smiled a gentle smile of satisfaction as he turned off the ignition, and the Jaguar’s self-satisfied purring ceased.

  Hillary climbed out and glanced around, a wind presaging rain blowing her hair across her face. Some late-flowering Michaelmas daisies and the last of the chrysanthemums and a few straggling dahlias filled the borders in the garden of number eight, where they walked up a gravel-packed path towards the front door. After they had rung the doorbell, it was promptly opened, as if the occupant of the house had been looking out for their arrival.

  The woman who looked out at them was perhaps in her late fifties, but obviously knew how to make the best of herself. Her fair hair, which should, if left to nature, have turned to silver by now, was instead a gentle platinum blonde, and had been cut in a gentle swoop to sit just below her ears. Her make-up was light but well applied, and suited her. Wide hazel eyes looked at them warily. She was dressed in well-tailored pale beige slacks that had been teamed with a russet-coloured soft polo-neck jumper that cleverly hid any sagging lines at her neck which might have given away her true age. A simple gold chain hung against the cashmere at her throat.

  Her cheekbones were taut, and she had the look of someone who’d recently had her face lifted, and Botox had definitely recently been flirted with.

  ‘Hello. You’re the people from the police?’ Sylvia Gentley, formerly Grant, asked them, her voice a shade tight and strained. ‘A woman rang yesterday and said that you’d be dropping by. This is about my mother, yes?’

  ‘Yes. That would have been my assistant, Wendy Turnbull.’ Hillary held out her own ID, and Jake did the same. Briefly, she explained who she was, and what it was they were doing on her doorstep.

  Mary Rose nodded, and stood to one side to usher them in, but Hillary wasn’t sure just how much of her speech the other woman had taken in. ‘So you’re taking another look at my mother’s death, yes?’ she said, as she showed them through a spacious, wooden-floored hall to a living area carpeted in moss green. A cream-coloured leather sofa was flanked by two matching armchairs, nestled around a low wooden coffee table, facing a working fireplace. A fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth, instantly improving chilled spirits.

  ‘Please, sit down,’ Mary Rose asked diffidently. ‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’

  ‘No, we’re fine just now, thank you, Mrs Gentley,’ Hillary said. ‘I’m sorry if talking about this upsets you. But murder cases are never closed, you know, and periodically we do take another look at them in the hope of finding something new.’ She briefly went on to cover her own background and expertise, all the while watching the murder victim’s eldest daughter thoughtfully.

  She looked ill-at-ease and unhappy, and Hillary thought she knew why. No doubt DI Jarvis hadn’t made any secrets of her belief that Mary Rose’s son was one of her prime suspects. And having that child now in gaol, whilst trying to live the middle-class respectable dream, was always going to be a difficult one to juggle.

  Hillary was not surprised that the husband was nowhere in evidence, although at this time of the day, he’d have been at the office anyway. She had little doubt that the husband would not be hearing about the police visit any time in the near future. She wondered, vaguely, if he even knew that his late mother-in-law had met her end violently. Or that one of his stepchildren currently resided at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

  ‘At this point, I really just want to get an overall view of the case,’ Hilary began carefully. ‘Your mother and father had a happy marriage?’ she asked, deciding to slip into it gently.

  ‘Oh yes. They were devoted to each other. Dad thought the sun shone out of Mum’s eyes, and Mum…. Well, Mum was always very happy too. Although in a more pragmatic way, you know?’

  Hillary cocked her head to one side. ‘Your father was the dreamer, and she was the one who kept things together, sort of like that?’ she hazarded a guess.

  ‘Yes, exactly. She raised all three of us kids, kept the house spotless, made sure we were fed and clothed and didn’t skive off school.’ She smiled nervously. ‘Whilst Dad worked, tended the garden and the allotment and went fishing. He was the one who always dug up a pine tree from the woods and helped us decorate it at Christmas. If we wanted a treat or something, we’d ask Dad first as Mum was more likely to say that we couldn’t afford it. He’d bring home one of the farm sheepdog’s puppies for us to play with, although Mum would never let us keep a pet of our own – not to live in the house, like. He’d build us a go-cart out of old crates and bicycle wheels but Mum wouldn’t let us play on it until the homework was done. You know what I mean?’

  Hillary smiled. ‘I do. It sounds like you had an ideal childhood. Did you like living in Caulcott?’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, as a kid, I did,’ Mary Rose, after a moment’s consideration, qualified her original statement. ‘Of course, we never knew any other kind of life except life around the farm. After we all went to school in Bicester, it sort of opened our eyes a bit – you know, to how cut-off and out of the w
ay the village truly was. My other sisters couldn’t wait to leave. When you’re a teenager, things suddenly change anyway.’

  ‘Did your father ever look at other women?’ Hillary asked delicately, but Mary Rose didn’t take offence. Instead she just laughed.

  ‘Dad? Good grief, no.’

  ‘And your mother? It couldn’t have been much of a life for her, some people would say. Stuck at home; raising children, doing a series of menial jobs. It wouldn’t have been surprising if she’d been tempted by the chance of some excitement or romance.’

  Mary Rose shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘I suppose not. But you never really think about things like that, do you? Not about your own parents, anyway. And who would they have an affair with? Have you seen Caulcott? It’s pretty enough, but tiny. And everyone in those days knew everyone else’s business. It’s not like it is now, with neighbours hardly knowing each other’s names. Besides, Mum and Dad were so … well … staid. Set in their ways. I’m sure she wouldn’t even have thought about cheating on my dad. And just why are you asking this, anyway?’ Mary Rose demanded. ‘You don’t think Mum was killed by some toy-boy she’d taken up with, surely? If you’d known her, you’d realize how ridiculous that is.’

  Hillary smiled placatingly and held up a pacifying hand. ‘I’m sure you’re right: we just have to ask certain things.’ She decided to change the subject before Mary Rose could get on her high horse. ‘I expect you went over all this at the time, but had you noticed anything different in your mother’s behaviour before she died? Had she said anything to you about anybody threatening her, for instance?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that,’ Mary Rose spread her hands. Her fingernails, Hillary noticed, had been painted a matching russet colour to match her sweater. ‘In fact, Mum was more likely to do any threatening. Not that she was a troublemaker,’ she added hastily, ‘I just meant that she could stand up for herself. She always did. I remember once, my little sister had some trouble with bullies at school, and Mum marched into the school and read one of the teachers the riot act. We weren’t sure whether to be embarrassed or to applaud.’

  Hillary smiled. ‘She sounds like a woman who knew her own mind.’

  ‘Oh, she did.’

  So if she’d found someone breaking into her house, she’d be the kind to rush in and challenge them, rather than play it safe, and run, Hillary mused, which was definitely something to bear in mind.

  ‘I understand your mother blamed the local farmer for your dad’s death?’ she fished gently.

  Mary Rose sighed. ‘Yes. Dad should have retired long before he did, of course, but he had that old-fashioned work ethic, you know? If a man wasn’t providing food for the family, he wasn’t much of a man, that sort of attitude. Even though it was only him and Mum at the end, and they could manage perfectly well on their pensions, he still needed to go out every day and bring home the bacon. Until, one day, he just didn’t,’ she finished flatly. ‘Come home, that is.’ She stared for a few moments at her hands, as if surprised by the diamond and gold rings she found on her fingers there.

  ‘You loved your dad,’ Hillary said softly. ‘His death must have been a big shock.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And for your mum too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she blamed Randy Gibson?’

  Mary Rose sighed. ‘She needed to blame someone, I suppose.’

  ‘You didn’t share her anger?’

  Mary Rose thought for a moment. ‘Dad was a mild-mannered sort of man, you know, easy going? But that didn’t mean to say that he didn’t know his own mind, and he could be stubborn at times when he wanted to be. Mum had been nagging at him for years to retire properly, but he just didn’t want to. And I think, if he’d been given the choice, he’d have preferred to go the way he did, in the saddle so to speak. At least he was out in the fields he loved, in the fresh air. And it was sudden, and over with quickly. It could have been a lot worse, couldn’t it? I mean, you hear so many dreadful things, about the way people can die. So….’ Mary Rose shrugged helplessly.

  Hillary nodded. Now for the tricky bit. ‘Your son, Robert, inherited your mother’s estate, I understand,’ she said, careful to keep her voice utterly neutral.

  Mary Rose stiffened visibly. ‘Yes, he did. He was the eldest boy, and Mum’s favourite. But he didn’t kill her. I know that that other one, DI Jarvis, kept on and on at him, but he never went near Caulcott that day, and you can’t prove that he did,’ she ended mutinously.

  Hillary nodded. Obviously there was going to be no leeway here and there was little point, at this juncture, in pushing it. ‘All right, Mrs Gentley.’ Hillary backed off with a brief smile. ‘Is there anything at all that you can think of that could help us? Something that you didn’t think of at the time, maybe? I understand that you might not have felt like talking about anything to DI Jarvis, but I can assure you that I don’t have any preconceptions about your mother’s death. And with the passing of time, sometimes, things can become clearer. Do you have any idea at all, no matter how tenuous or far-fetched you might think it is, about who might have killed your mother, or why?’

  Mary Rose sighed heavily. ‘No. I wish I did. There was some talk about another woman who went to the same old folks’ club as Mum, and some rivalry over a man, but I think that’s a bit far-fetched myself.’

  ‘Yes, we know about that,’ Hillary said.

  Again Mary Rose shrugged helplessly. ‘Then I’m sorry. I really can’t help you. I wish I could. I hate it, not knowing what happened. Thinking of whoever did it, getting away with it. It makes me really mad sometimes, so mad I want to scream out loud. But I just don’t know who on earth would want to kill Mum. She was a lovely soul and, as far as I know, never hurt anybody.’

  And, Hillary thought sadly, who could ask for a better epitaph than that?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  At a small stand of farmhouses guarded by an ancient if still impressive Douglas fir, Wendy Turnbull turned off a country lane onto what she thought might very well be the site of an old Roman road, and headed towards the farming hamlet community of Caulcott. The smell of a pig farm was the first thing that hit her after she’d pulled over onto a muddy grass verge and climbed from the car, and she wrinkled her nose with a sigh. So much for the glamour of joining the police service, she thought with a brief grin. Cagney and Lacey it definitely wasn’t.

  Thanks to good old Google, she knew that the hamlet boasted a single pub, The Horse and Groom and one narrow ditch-lined lane. Along the length of this, were assorted farmworkers’ cottages and a number of larger homes, which had quickly been snaffled up by the wellheeled who preferred to live the rural idyll – and who probably worked in London or Birmingham, which were both within an easily commutable distance, thanks to the nearby motorway. It made the real estate now spreading out around her very desirable, thank you very much, and completely out of her reach.

  Not that she was seriously tempted. The water in the ditch, at this time of year, was high and looked perilously close to flooding, and she was glad that she’d had the foresight to stash her wellies in the boot of the Mini. A cold wind blew across the fields, and the overcast sky made everything look as if she’d somehow stepped into a black-and-white photograph. There was a sense of isolation about the place that made her shiver, and two crows, cawing raucously from a nearby denuded oak tree didn’t do much to lighten the atmosphere. Mind you, as a Goth, it certainly had some pluses.

  Making sure her camera phone was working properly, she zipped her black puffa-jacket right up to her chin and set off, snap-happily taking photographs as she went.

  After about an hour, she’d gone from one end of the village to the other, and had been pleasantly surprised to find that a number of residents had actually been at home. These, perhaps not surprisingly, consisted mostly of the older contingent. A significant number of them had been original witnesses in DI Jarvis’s investigation and, what’s more, available and indeed eager for interview. Wendy got the i
mpression that the murder of Sylvia Perkins was the one hot and favourite topic of conversation that would still be going strong in twenty years’ time. Only one of Sylvia’s nearest neighbours, an old woman by the name of Maureen Coles had passed on after having moved into a nearby nursing home.

  Once back in the car, Wendy set off back to HQ, pleased to have a suitably impressive list of interview times lined up. Not that such a routine job would impress the boss of course. She wished she’d been given the Mary Rose Perkins’ job instead, and wondered just what Sylvia’s daughter might have had to say. Probably nothing new, she supposed realistically. But it was better than freezing her backside off in the back of beyond.

  Still, she knew that Hillary Greene would play fair, and soon it would be her turn to have a proper bite of the cherry.

  As she drove back towards Kidlington, Wendy hummed along softly with the latest pop tune playing on her radio, and with a slight pang, considered the woeful state of her love life. Barbara Lui, the beautiful oriental girl who was currently sharing her tiny flat in the village of Begbroke, was showing all the signs of having a wandering eye. Not hard, when you were a bodacious student like Babs, and had the entire pick of the female student body of Oxford to peruse.

  Wendy shrugged off the slight pangs of heartache, and wondered if perhaps two shouldn’t play at that game. Perhaps she should find herself a strapping male boyfriend, just to give Babs something to really think about. Being bi should have some advantages, after all.

  With that sorted out, Wendy turned the volume up, and warbled along with more gusto.

  Back at HQ, Superintendent Steven Crayle accepted a cup of coffee from Commander Marcus Donleavy’s secretary with a smile of thanks. Once she’d given her boss his own cup and had withdrawn from the room, Marcus came straight to the point.

  A tall man, with grey hair, grey eyes, and dressed in his trademark grey suit, Donleavy reminded Steven of a smooth, grey shark. He had the same dead-eye gaze and the same seemingly effortless and elegant hunting technique typical of that species.