False Accusations: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide... (Willowgrove Village Mystery Book 1)

by Cora Harrison

  This was the spot where the elderly man was found dead, knocked down by a car which didn’t stop. Found just beside a field gate, Flora remembered reading. She moved across and stood there, then looked back. There was a glint of sun on the ground reflecting from the French windows outside Mrs Trevor’s bedroom. There was no doubt that, if the girls’ mother had been in her bedroom at the time, she might well have seen the car that knocked down the unfortunate old man and then sped away. She would have been questioned by the police, but Mrs Trevor was a shrewd woman with a quick eye for a financial advantage and a great love of money. She might well have seen an advantage in keeping her own counsel. And if she had recognised the showy car that Benjamin Price’s parents had bought him for his eighteenth birthday, then she might have seen how she could milk the fond parents during the years to come.

  The thought occurred to Flora that, perhaps, Mrs Trevor was responsible, to a certain degree, for her own murder. She was a very forceful woman with an unshakeable belief in her opinions and a steamroller-like fashion of achieving what she set out to. She might, thought Flora, have decided to take some action: might have decided that Jason should marry Rosie; that Mr Michael Rice should pay her hush money; or that Darren Frost and his housemates should be removed from the village of Willowgrove.

  Chapter 16

  ‘I’ve applied for an extension to retain Rosie Trevor in custody for questioning,’ said Sergeant Dawkins as soon as Flora, followed by Ted Bradley, was ushered into his office.

  ‘Why?’ Her voice was barely polite. Flora’s mentors would have been disappointed with her. They laid great emphasis on co-operation with the police and assisting them in every way with the task of discovering the truth. ‘You’re not a defence lawyer,’ she had been told, ‘you’re there solely to help these juveniles to understand the procedure and to interpret them to the officer in charge.’

  ‘Because I haven’t enough evidence to charge her,’ said Sergeant Dawkins with a show of frankness.

  Bit too late to try turning on the charm, Flora thought sourly. ‘Release her, then,’ she said with a note of challenge in her voice.

  ‘Mrs Morgan,’ said the sergeant, picking up his unblemished pencil and rolling it between fingers and thumbs, ‘there has been a woman murdered. She may not have been universally loved, but she was a good woman who did her best, who, as a single parent, had the sole responsibility of rearing her two daughters and, most people seem to think, did a very good job of it. We have hundreds of statements here from neighbours and colleagues and they all agreed that Mrs Trevor spared no time, no energy and no expense when it came to the two girls.’ He paused for a moment, gave the pencil an exuberant twirl and then added, ‘Would you agree?’

  Flora nodded. Of course she had to agree. Mrs Trevor was an annoying woman, but a good woman. The girls were always spotlessly clean, beautifully dressed and when it came to the school affairs, Mrs Trevor had always been the first to volunteer. Whether it was for manning a stall at a jumble sale, escorting a class to do grave rubbings in the local churchyard or to stand knee deep in cold water making sure no infant drowned in the three-foot deep swimming pool, Mrs Trevor was always one of the first to answer the appeal..

  ‘So this woman gets murdered and it’s my job to find who is responsible.’ Flora was beginning to get very tired of Sergeant Dawkins’ monotonous voice.

  ‘But why Rosie?’ Flora demanded. He wasn’t going to intimidate or browbeat her. She glanced meaningfully across at Ted.

  ‘As I pointed out to you, this woman wasn’t popular and there were suspicions about blackmail in the village.’ The solicitor sounded slightly embarrassed as he said this and rather than face Sergeant Dawkins’ irritated face, he kept his eyes fixed on his notebook. ‘And there are suspicions about some of the inhabitants of the village being involved in burglary and drug dealing.’

  ‘And Miss Rosie Trevor has actually confessed to the murder,’ was the sergeant’s riposte.

  ‘It must be quite obvious to you by now that she is hardly responsible for what she says,’ snapped Flora.

  ‘Mrs Morgan is worried about Rosie’s mental state,’ put in Ted in a peace-making manner. ‘If she is not released today, we are going to ask for a doctor and a psychiatrist to examine her.’

  Sergeant Dawkins gave a barely suppressed sigh. Flora had a moment’s sympathy with him. Psychiatrists were a necessary evil in the education system, as it was impossible to get extra help in terms of remedial teaching or a classroom assistant to support a failing child without a report from one of them. Apart from that Flora seldom found much of interest or enlightenment in their reports. She could imagine that, to the police, psychiatrists, bearing long-winded reports, were probably nothing but a nuisance.

  ‘Mrs Morgan, let me ask you a question.’ Sergeant Dawkins put down the pencil, placing it very carefully in the exact centre of the tray, and leaned across the desk. ‘Who do you think murdered Mrs Trevor? She was murdered, you know; let’s not forget that. Someone brutally held a pillow over her head and kept it there until she died of lack of air. Who do you think did that?’

  Flora was silent. She was tempted to say that was his business, but she did not. The years had taught her to keep a guard on her tongue.

  ‘Let me help you,’ he said with an air of exaggerated patience. ‘Let’s go through the case. We normally start with family members. Now, the husband was killed in a car crash last year.’ He gave her a quick glance and Flora nodded wisely. ‘The father of Mrs Trevor has been dead for a long time and her mother is in a nursing home here at Brocklehurst, so we can eliminate them. Mrs Trevor was an only child, there are no near relations; her mother, also, was an only child. Now for the two children: let’s skip the eldest daughter, Rosie, for the moment. The younger daughter, Jenny, took leave of her mother in the early morning, the mother was alive at that time; she was seen by the taxi driver who gave his evidence shortly after the discovery of the body, he has testified to that effect. Miss Jenny Trevor checked in her luggage at the airport, went straight through security, her picture is on the camera there, went into the shopping mall and then caught the 8.00 a.m. plane to Majorca.’

  ‘What about a robbery?’ Flora’s tone was brisk and, she hoped, implied that he was time wasting. ‘And have you cross-questioned the taxi driver? He was, when young, a suggestible boy, who liked to please, easily fooled,’ she added, thinking back to the time when Jenny and Anthony had painted a local donkey with stripes from school paints and sent Ian Madden flying into the school office to tell Paula to ring up the police and inform them that there was a zebra loose.

  ‘The pearls were insured for two thousand pounds,’ he said, ignoring her comment, ‘I suppose that this could give a motive, though it’s not a lot of money these days and, of course, it is difficult to get rid of these things; most burglars prefer straightforward money. But we are looking into that aspect. At the moment a young man is helping the police with their enquiries.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He has, however, an alibi for the time of the murder.’

  ‘By one or other of his friends, I suppose.’

  Sergeant Dawkins frowned at her intervention, but did not contradict her, so Flora knew that she was right. Though she was pleased that poor Darren had got one of his friends to testify for him, she was glad to sense that the witness would be considered quite unreliable. If nothing else, this would be enough to cast a doubt over Rosie’s guilt.

  ‘And about the doctor and the psychiatrist?’ Ted was doing his bit.

  ‘If you consider a doctor is necessary, one can be brought quite soon; a psychiatrist may be more difficult.’ Sergeant Dawkins visibly repressed an impatient sigh. He lifted his phone, barked an order into it to it, addressed at the switchboard person, no doubt, and waited for a few minutes, idly using the blunt end of a pointed pencil for the purposes of stirring a stray paperclip round and round, and then moving it from top to bottom of the tray on his polished desk.

  �
�I see,’ he said into the phone. And then again, ‘I see. Well, ask him if he can spare another few minutes of his time. Dr Rowling is actually on the premises at the moment stitching up a wound incurred by a constable,’ he said, replacing the phone. ‘He will see the young lady in a minute when he has finished. Perhaps you would like to go back to the interview room, Mrs Morgan. Anything else that I can do for you, Mr Bradley, before you go back to your office?’

  ‘What about the question of bail for my client?’ Ted asked this question every time that he saw Sergeant Dawkins, and not unsurprisingly, there was by now a slightly hopeless note in his voice.

  ‘Not recommended,’ said Sergeant Dawkins briskly. ‘And I should inform you both that I have permission from the magistrate to question Miss Trevor more often than I have done previously.’

  ‘And will Mr Bradley or myself be present on those occasions?’ Flora asked. She saw Ted make a note in his little notebook. He looked interrogatively at the sergeant.

  ‘If the accused asks for your presence,’ Sergeant Dawkins said finally.

  ‘This is bad news, Ted,’ Flora said in an undertone as they parted outside the door of the interview room. ‘Rosie hasn’t the slightest sense of self-preservation and no common sense. I can’t see her demanding her rights. She always expects the whole world to revolve around her and for everyone to be doing their best for her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry too much, Flora,’ Ted said cheerfully. ‘Something will turn up.’ And then he was gone with a quick handshake. He had given up assuring her that there would be no proper case for Rosie to answer. The events of the last couple of meetings had shaken them both. No one knew what on earth Rosie was going to say next. Hope now had to rest in the psychiatrist — and they, as Flora knew from past experience, were extremely unpredictable themselves.

  ‘This is Dr Rowling, Mrs Morgan.’ Jim Prior, large and dependable as ever, was ushering along a tall gangly man. Dr Rowling didn’t look like Flora’s idea of a doctor; he was wearing an open-necked, short-sleeved shirt and a loose pair of fawn-coloured trousers. On his feet were a pair of rather grubby trainers. They shook hands and then moved into the interview room to await Rosie’s arrival.

  ‘I understand you know the young lady from the school where you were headmistress.’ The doctor, Flora had to admit, looked competent and intelligent and her spirits rose a little.

  ‘And Police Cadet Prior, also; he’s another of my former pupils — did he tell you that?’

  The doctor nodded and smiled, but said no more. Flora took the initiative quickly.

  ‘I’m very worried about Rosie,’ she told him. ‘I’m sure that no one is ill-treating her deliberately, but she looks as if she might be feverish and it appears that she’s not eating.’ Quickly Flora summed up Rosie’s past history for him.

  ‘Come in and introduce me to her,’ he said when Flora had finished. He had made no comment on her pithy summing up of Rosie’s mental state. Flora hadn’t expected him to; this would be for the psychiatrist. However, Flora knew that he would bear it in mind and hoped to make an ally of him.

  Rosie, unfortunately, looked much better when she was brought back in by P.C. Markham. She had shed the green sweatshirt and was now wearing a pale blue top which suited her colouring much better. Her cheeks were faintly flushed at the sight of a strange man and she gave him one of her beautiful smiles. No one, Flora thought with some irritation, could smile like Rosie. It started with a softening of the eyes, and then a slight parting of the lips, disclosing perfect teeth, and then the eyes widened, the mouth curved, the dimples appeared, her whole face lit up and the smile was held to perfection for just a few seconds, and then dissolved into a slight hint of sadness. It was a wonderful performance and quite unselfconscious. She had captured hearts with it when she was a small child and had continued to all through adolescence.

  ‘I’m Dr Rowling, Rosie,’ said the doctor briskly. ‘Mrs Morgan thought you weren’t looking very well this morning, so let’s see if she’s making a fuss about nothing, shall we? You just sit there by the window, open your mouth, like a good girl, and let me have a look at your throat.’

  Rosie did so obediently, looking up at him with a gentle air of admiration. He went through everything very thoroughly; Flora had to admit that, taking her pulse, popping a thermometer in her mouth, even putting a stethoscope on her back and telling her to take deep breaths.

  ‘I hear that you are not eating well, why is that?’ he asked, scribbling on the back of a prescription form that he had taken from his pocket.

  ‘I don’t like the food.’ Rosie pouted prettily and Dr Rowling gave an amused smile.

  ‘Well, do your best like a good girl,’ he said gently. He gave a quick nod to P.C. Markham who obediently rose to her feet and took her prisoner by the arm. Suddenly Rosie’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I don’t like it here,’ she wailed. To Flora’s satisfaction she suddenly sounded like a very young child. ‘Mrs Morgan, I don’t like it here; I want to go home.’

  Flora glanced at Dr Rowling. He was watching Rosie with interest. She had lost interest in him now and she threw herself into Flora’s arms, sobbing hysterically.

  Flora took a deep breath. She was a tough person, but there was something about Rosie, something so babyish that Flora found this difficult to bear. She felt a prick of tears in her eyes, she, who prided herself on her resilience!

  ‘Rosie,’ Flora said the word as steadily as she could. Gently she unlocked the girl’s arms from around her neck and took a step backwards so that Rosie could see her face. ‘Rosie,’ she said, ‘you will have to stay here until Sergeant Dawkins finds out what exactly happened to your mother. She’s dead, Rosie. You do know that, don’t you? Your mother is dead.’

  She watched Rosie carefully, but saw the shutters come down over her face. Rosie gave another few sobs and then turned towards P.C. Markham who put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and led her out.

  ‘Sad,’ commented Dr Rowling when they were alone.

  ‘She looked terrible this morning.’ Flora tried to keep her voice steady and unemotional.

  ‘Well, she’s probably a highly-strung kid, she has some behavioural problems, does she?’

  Flora nodded.

  ‘I was hoping that you might back me. I’m trying to get Sergeant Dawkins to release her on bail. I’m willing to put up the bail and to take responsibility for her; she could stay at my house,’ Flora confided, making her voice as frank as she could.

  The doctor frowned a little at this. ‘You would be willing to take this risk?’

  Flora looked at him incredulously. ‘Risk?’

  ‘Yes, risk, what if she put a pillow over your head when you were asleep?’

  Flora stared at him for a moment and then shook her head firmly. She didn’t want to end the interview on this note.

  ‘Doctor Rowling,’ she said slowly, ‘did you notice the expression on Rosie’s face when I asked her whether she knew that her mother was dead?’ When he said nothing, Flora continued, groping carefully for the right words. ‘You see, I don’t think she actually realises that her mother is dead. She was speaking about a boy, someone who was in primary school with her and she said — and I quote — “my mother doesn’t like him” — not didn’t like him.’

  ‘Not unusual, surely, for someone like her.’

  ‘Her language development is fine,’ Flora said, trying not to allow her irritation to show. ‘You must have noticed, she uses tenses perfectly — she could do that by the time that she was seven — and she could read a bit by that age, also. Time and numbers were huge problems to her, but not words.’

  ‘I think that I agree with you that she didn’t seem to realise that her mother was dead.’ His voice was still a bit doubtful, but Flora seized on these words gratefully.

  ‘Would you be willing to say that to Sergeant Dawkins?’

  ‘Yes, I think I could do that.’ The doctor looked down at her with a half-smile.

 
Sergeant Dawkins listened to what the doctor had to say impassively. ‘Thank you, doctor,’ he said eventually. ‘She certainly doesn’t seem to be too interested in her mother. But if she thinks that her mother is still alive, why doesn’t she ask for her? You would expect that from a child, and that’s what you are saying to us, Mrs Morgan, that this young woman has to be judged as a child. Would you be willing to try an experiment?’ He opened his desk drawer and took out an envelope. There was a sheaf of photographs in the envelope and he leafed through them and selected one.

  ‘There’s nothing too frightening about this one, how about if we call her in and show her this photograph and see what her reaction is. I must warn her, of course, that anything she says will be used in evidence.’

  Flora looked at the photograph. She was glad that he hadn’t shown her the more alarming ones; this one looked repulsive. Mrs Trevor was obviously dead — only her neck and face showed, but there were purple marks around her mouth and on the sides of her cheeks. Her eyes were grossly protruding, widely opened and full of terror. Flora swallowed hard. What should she do? Should she ask for Ted to be present? No. He would only ask her for her opinion as to whether this was wise, and if the case did come to court, the defending barrister could make capital out of the fact that the solicitor had not been present when the accused had been frightened into some admission by the sight of the photograph.

  ‘Yes, fetch her,’ Flora said briefly.

  Rosie was tear-stained and slightly sobbing when she was brought back. She cried as a child cries, with no red nose, no swollen eyes, no distortion of features, just two snail-like tracks down her perfect skin and her eyelashes black with moisture.

  ‘Rosie,’ Flora said solemnly, watching her carefully. ‘The sergeant wants you to look at this picture.’