‘Yes, he was always a nice boy,’ Flora said fondly. She took her tray and placed it on the small iron table under the maple tree. There were two chairs there already but nothing would content Paula until she had taken out a pair of immensely comfortable wooden loungers and placed foam cushions on them.
Flora relaxed into hers, coffee mug in one hand, meringue raspberry cake in the other and gave a sigh of contentment.
‘Why are you like Mrs Bartley?’ she said indistinctly as she chewed on the meringue. ‘I think raspberries must be my favourite fruit,’ she added as the meringue melted and slipped down her throat.
‘Because you’re Miss Marple, of course,’ she said, pouring some cream into her coffee and then joining me. ‘Mrs Bartley was her friend and she asked her all the right questions so that Miss Marple could show how clever she was.’
‘I wish I had Miss Marple here,’ Flora said with feeling. ‘By now she would be sure of the murderer and she would just be checking a few things. First of all I was convinced that Rosie didn’t do it. Now, I must say that I’m not too sure. The way she blurted that out when Jenny was crying, well, I did get a doubt then.’ Flora thought about that for a moment and then another speculation surfaced. If Rosie had been thwarted by her mother would she have taken child-like steps to remove her? What if she were wrong and Sergeant Dawkins right? Hastily she tried to blot the thought from her mind. She was here to widen the field of suspects, not to find reasons why Rosie, after all, might have done the murder.
‘I suppose you’ve never heard any hint of an involvement between Jenny and Benjamin, have you, Paula?’ she asked and added, ‘It just occurred to me that perhaps Mrs Trevor might not like Benjamin as a suitor for Jenny — after all, he’s pretty wild, these days, isn’t he? All these fast cars! And if he did have a thing about Jenny, but her mother didn’t like him. Well ... that might give him a motive to murder her,’ she finished lamely. It didn’t sound very likely, even to her own ears.
‘Jenny seems to appear with a new young man every week,’ said Paula. ‘I haven’t noticed her with Benjamin, though. And I think you are wrong about Mrs Trevor; money was very important to her. I think someone from a wealthy family like the Prices would have seemed ideal for Jenny. No, the only one that I remember seeing her with more than once recently is that fellow who is working in that big butcher’s shop in Brocklehurst. Do you know the one that I mean? One of the Osmotherley twins.’
‘I know who you mean! It was Jason Osmotherley, is that right?’ That was a surprise. Flora found it hard to imagine Jenny and Jason together. Surely she was far too bright for him. Though, of course, he was quite a big, handsome lad.
‘That’s the one. I’ve seen him a few times with her. He doesn’t live at home now, so you wouldn’t have seen him for a while, but I’ve seen him drive Jenny here on some Sundays and they’ve visited both families. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen Rosie with Jason, just with Jenny and that was only a couple of times.’
Well, Mrs Trevor would definitely not like Jason for her daughter, thought Flora. There had been some sort of fuss about Jason, she remembered, and wondered whether Paula remembered also. Something about a fight. Surely his name could be added to the police list without it doing him any harm.
‘Of course, Mrs Trevor would be very annoyed if she thought it was serious,’ continued Paula. ‘I’d say that she put a stop to it pretty quickly, especially after he was in court for punching someone in Ashford. Knocked him out cold. The newspapers had quite a bit about it. I think he got a few days in prison, or was it just a fine? So we’ve got Mr Price as a possibility, young Darren from the Home, or perhaps one of the other fellows there who broke in for some reason — there would have been some of them at that party on Willow Island and they would have to pass Dewhurst Lane on their way back, and now there’s Jason.’ Paula thought for a few minutes and then said earnestly, ‘But, you know, Flora, I do think that the most likely one is Jason Osmotherley. He’s such a bad-tempered fellow. Very hard to control. Poor Mrs Osmotherley. She’s at her wits’ ends about him. And will you ever forget the time of that rave! His poor parents. Well, I must say that I am sorry for them. The rest of the family have all been so respectable and hard-working.’
‘How do you feel about Jason Osmotherley, Simon?’ Simon was watching TV with Piper sprawled across his knee. He had made no attempt to wash his morning cereal bowl, Flora noticed with annoyance. Still there was a dusty look about his jeans so perhaps he had taken Piper for a walk. She stroked the dog’s head and he wagged his tail enthusiastically, but did not lift his head from Simon’s knee.
‘Jason Osmotherley?’ As usual Simon seemed miles away and spoke as though he had never heard the name before.
‘Yes,’ she said briefly, suppressing her impatience. She reached for the remote control and turned down the sound.
Simon seemed to consider this for a long time, gazing into the television screen, watching the silently jabbering figures of Home and Away.
‘He’s alright,’ he said eventually.
‘What do you mean “alright”?’ Leave him alone, she told herself, but somehow Rosie’s problems were more immediate than Simon’s. ‘Give him time,’ her doctor had said and she had been trying to do this. ‘How do you get on with him?’ She asked the question as gently as she could.
‘Alright,’ he said unhelpfully.
‘Oh, Simon, please!’
‘Well, what do you want me to say? You’ve been talking to Jenny, haven’t you? She’s back, isn’t she? Jenny will tell you everything.’ There was a note in his voice that made Piper lift his head and swipe a wet tongue across his face.
‘I think that you are cleverer than she, and more likely to tell me the truth,’ she said, after a minute. ‘And,’ she added, ‘you’re my son and I need help. I’m worried about Rosie. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve taken on this job of being a support to those who can’t manage on their own.’.
His face softened a little. He took his eyes from the television. He did not look at her, but down at Piper and he ran a fingernail up across the middle of the dog’s forehead, between his ears and over the back of his head, down to the rapidly growing adult ruff.
‘Poor old Rosie,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, Mum. Me and Piper will get our Sherlock Holmes caps on. We’ll go sniffing around and find out who-dun-it. I suppose that you want Jason to distract the police from Rosie in the meantime.’
‘Would he have been capable of murdering Mrs Trevor?’
‘I wouldn’t listen too much to Jenny if I were you; she was keen enough on poor Jason for a while, but now she’s made up her mind that Anthony is the better bet,’ he said, reaching for the remote control.
‘I’m listening to you,’ said Flora, trying to restrain her impatience. ‘Please, Simon.’ She handed over the remote control. No point in treating a nineteen-year-old young man as though he were twelve. If a change was to be made in his lifestyle, he had to make it himself.
He looked a little surprised as his fingers closed over it. He did not press the button, but glanced across at the closed curtains of the sitting room window.
‘He’s an obvious one for the police to waste some time over,’ he said. ‘But no, I wouldn’t think he’d have the guts. A bit like that Boxer that keeps barking at you, Piper, isn’t he? All mouth and no action, isn’t that right, old fellow?’ And with that, he pressed the button and the stuffy room filled with Australian accents again.
Chapter 14
Flora was at the police station with Rosie when Jason Osmotherley was mentioned again.
P.C. Markham brought up his name during a visit to Rosie. The motherly police officer came out into the corridor before Flora went in. Her kind face looked concerned.
‘She’s in a bit of a state,’ she said with a worried air. ‘Her sister’s been to see her, but that didn’t seem to help. She keeps crying. I was wondering if there is anyone else close to her. Apparently she had a boyfriend and she wants to see him.’
‘Really! What’s the name of the boyfriend? Did she tell you?’
P.C. Markham consulted her notes. ‘It’s someone called Jason.’ She coughed, glanced over her shoulder and then in a low voice said, ‘P.C. Prior said that he thought it was probably Jason Osmotherley who works in a butcher shop in Brocklehurst.’
‘I see,’ Flora nodded. Obviously Jim Prior, even if he were not officially working on the case, still took a friendly interest in poor Rosie. ‘I’ve heard the name,’ she said cautiously, ‘but I understood that Jason was the sister’s boyfriend.’
‘That’s what P.C. Prior thought also,’ confided P.C. Markham. ‘But Rosie was quite sure that he was her boyfriend.’
‘I’ll have a chat with her,’ promised Flora, ‘and then if it looks as if it might help, I’ll see if Jason would visit her. That would be all right, would it? I’ll go in and see her now, may I?’
‘Yes,’ P.C. Markham sounded worried. ‘She seems very upset; she’s not eating and she … well, she worries me a bit.’
Flora had always thought that Rosie had something very cat-like about her, not just physically; though the wide eyes were very kitten-like; it was more, she thought, that the girl had a love of comfort, a love of warmth, a certain detachment, which was reminiscent of a Persian cat.
However, one thing that every cat-owner knows is that when a cat is sick, it deteriorates very rapidly. And this was the way with Rosie. Flora stopped at the threshold of the interview room when she saw the girl. She couldn’t believe the change in her. A surge of anger swelled up inside of her. What have the police done to her? was her first thought. Films about police brutality came to her mind. It was barely forty-eight hours since Rosie had been taken into custody, but the girl looked as though she had been imprisoned for years. Her blue eyes were dull, the clear whites blood-shot and there were dark circles under them. She seemed somehow to have lost weight in those two days; her rounded cheeks had fallen, the cheekbones more prominent than ever. Rosie, unlike her sister, had normally worn very little make-up; perhaps she did not have the money for it, but probably her innate delight in her own prettiness make her realise that her wild rose complexion, delicately arched eyebrows and vividly red lips needed no further enhancement.
But now she suddenly looked years older and far plainer.
Bewildered, miserable, her large blue eyes wore a frightened, totally uncomprehending look. Her lips were trembling. Rosie, so used to coping with a world that she only half understood, had suddenly reached the black depths and felt completely lost. It wasn’t so much terror — in a way, she was so totally lacking in imagination that she could not feel fear. No, what Rosie was experiencing now was probably more like the feelings of a terrified claustrophobic — a claustrophobic who has been locked in a small dark cupboard with no hope of escape.
For a moment Flora experienced the selfish thought of wishing that she had never become involved, but she suppressed it quickly. She realised that she was becoming overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and fear; guilt because somehow or other she should have made Sergeant Dawkins understand that Rosie lived in some sort of fantasy world, and fear that she was now too late to save her from her fate at the hands of the law. I am responsible for her, thought Flora, and I have failed her.
Flora compressed her lips, fighting for self-control, for the old ability to do her job in a compassionate way without allowing her emotions to become too involved. She knew that she was badly shaken by these waves of pity and overwhelming anger that swept over her, that they were weakening her, interfering with her ability to judge the moment when to speak, when to remain silent, what to say and what not to say. She recognised that she would have to suppress both the pity and the anger. Now she needed every ounce of that calm self-possession which had been the mask that she wore to face the world over the last twenty years. Resolutely, she turned her mind back to Rosie, scanning the girl from head to toe, checking everything from the way she stood, to the delicate skin on her face. And yet there was no mark on her, no visible brutality. Flora held out a hand, drew her forward, placing a palm onto her forehead; she was quite cool, cold even. Jenny must have been back to the house and had brought her sister a change of clothing. Even though the weather was still very hot and Flora was wearing a linen skirt and a short-sleeved blouse, Rosie had on a pair of jeans, slightly too large for her, and a green sweatshirt. The lovely girl in the floating pink and orange dress had gone; the green sweatshirt was the wrong colour for her. Flora had never seen Rosie wear green before. It dulled her beauty, dimmed the blue eyes and muddied the translucent complexion.
‘Aren’t you too warm in that sweatshirt?’ Flora asked the question just for the sake of something to say, and Rosie shook her head silently. That was not like her either. Rosie usually would chat about clothes forever. Clothes and what suited her was a great subject of conversation for Rosie. Mrs Trevor had never dressed with any particular taste, so it always appeared as though Rosie herself had an innate sense of style.
‘Have you been talking to Sergeant Dawkins, again, Rosie?’ Flora asked the question quietly but saw P.C. Markham give her a quick glance. It had been agreed that either the solicitor or she would be present during any interrogations for the moment. Flora didn’t trust Sergeant Dawkins; he was either personally convinced of Rosie’s guilt, or else, she thought cynically, he had summed up the case and reckoned that this was the quickest and easiest route to a speedy conviction. She wondered whether he had been pestering the girl, asking the same questions over and over, leaving her distressed and frightened.
‘No.’ Her voice was listless, but then it broke. ‘I want to go home.’ The way she said those words was heartrending. Rosie was always one to believe that someone would give her what she wanted. From a very early age she had been convinced that the other people around her were there only serve her, that her wishes would be fulfilled once she had mentioned them. Now something had broken that confidence and the words ‘I want to go home’ were spoken with a hopeless intonation in her voice.
Flora sat down next to her, keeping Rosie’s cold hand between her own and turned her gently towards the light. Sweet and charming as she always was, every so often you suddenly realised that her essential spirit seemed to float inside that perfect shell and that it was quite hard to reach it. She wasn’t looking at anyone now: her eyes were quite blank. Once more, she repeated, ‘I want to go home,’ but there was no appeal, no emotion in the words.
Suddenly Flora decided to treat her as if she were like any other nineteen-year-old. Perhaps everyone was tiptoeing too much around her. Perhaps the guilt was hers. That was the way Rosie had been treated at primary school — everyone pretending that she was as advanced as the others, taking elaborate care so that nothing should distress her, nothing should prove too difficult for her, trying to avoid questions that would be difficult for her to answer.
‘Rosie,’ Flora said, making her voice a little stern, even a little cross. Like all teachers she was good at putting on that tone. ‘You must stop all this nonsense or you will be put in prison. Do you understand me,’ she went on relentlessly. ‘If you don’t tell us the whole truth about what happened that morning, you will be put in prison for years and years and you will hate it and no one will listen to you if you ask to go home. You will just have to stay there for years and years and years.’
Flora stopped, feeling like a ham actor and very afraid that Rosie would burst into a fit of hysterics. She glanced at P.C. Markham, but the woman made no disapproving gesture. It was understood there must be no coaching of the girl and this was a high risk strategy, but she was still convinced of Rosie’s innocence. It was worth a try. Flora looked back at the girl. Unbelievably she was smiling slightly. A little colour was coming back into her cheeks and her blue eyes were not so dull.
‘I’ll be like Toad, then,’ she said softly. ‘He was sent to prison for years and years. Jenny will have to be the Gaoler’s Daughter and rescue me. The Police Lady,’ she gave a pr
etty glance at P.C. Markham, ‘can be Washerwoman. And the Gaoler must come too and he will fall in love with me and he’ll marry me.’
‘I hope you have written all that down,’ Flora said hopelessly to P.C. Markham who was looking amused. ‘I consider that very valuable evidence.’ She got to her feet. ‘I must go now, Rosie. But I will do my best to see if Jason will come and see you.’
‘Tell him to hurry.’ Rosie sounded cheerful when she called out the words and Flora thought that she would do her best. Those teenagers who had been together at Willowgrove Primary School all of those years ago seemed to retain a friendship for each other, so, perhaps, Jason would respond. Simon, she thought, had made many new friends at his school in Ashford, but he had shed them quickly once school was over. Those that he spent time with now all seemed to go back into his boyhood: the Osmotherley twins, Jenny, Benjamin Price, Darren Frost, Jim Prior and Ian Madden and the others from that year group.
Flora thought about Simon as she crossed the road towards the solicitor’s office. Should she have insisted on getting some sort of counselling or psychiatric help for him after the death of a much loved father? He had been very close to John, even closer, perhaps, than she had fully realised while coping with her own grief. Was it too late now? Piper, that wild dog, helped just a little. At least Simon was getting some physical comfort for him. She had given up removing the dog from the sofa and now was used to the sight of him lying across Simon’s knee watching endless sci-fi films.
False Accusations: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide... (Willowgrove Village Mystery Book 1) Page 12