by Ann Purser
At last the pile was finished, and she struggled up the narrow stairs with the basket all but toppling over.
“Mum!” shouted Josie from behind her closed door.
“What?” said Lois flatly, unforgiving.
“Forgot to tell you,” Josie said, opening her door and trying a tentative smile. “Somebody phoned for you before you came in. Name was Keith something…can’t remember the other name. Said he’d ring back later. Sounded quite nice…you got a fancy man, then, Mum?”
Lois ignored this. Keith? It rang no bells, and she had to content herself with waiting for the telephone to ring.
∗
“Lois Meade?”
“Yes? Who’s that?” She knew, of course, straightaway recognising the voice.
“This is the police – Keith Simpson. We met – ”
“I remember, only too well,” said Lois.
“Ah, good!” said Keith. “Well, as you know, I’m a police constable and cover Long Farnden, where you work…” Oh yes, Bobby on the Beat. Lois did not feel in any way chummy towards Keith Simpson. She answered his next questions unhelpfully in muttered monosyllables. It seemed that Keith had been chatting to the Detective Inspector – Hunter Cowgill – yes, it was a good name for a detective. She must have heard of him? No? Well, he was a legend in the criminal fraternity. “Which I am not part of,” said Lois sharply.
“I told him,” Keith pressed on, regardless of Lois’s hostility, “that you cleaned in several houses in Farnden, and might be worth talking to. So he said I could make a start on that…with your co-operation, that is,” he added hastily.
Lois was very surprised. Blimey, they’d cottoned on to that one pretty quickly. Her opinion of Keith Simpson modified a little. As for Hunter Cowgill – God, what a name! – she had no intention of fraternising with legends of any kind. Still, if she could be useful to them, then they could be useful to her. And she’d be in control, with no duty to tell them anything…or just as much as she chose.
“Hello? You still there, Lois?”
“Yeah, I’m still here. I’m thinking. I’m not sure what you mean by co-operation,” replied Lois slowly. Keith began to give her a lengthy explanation, but she cut in suddenly. “Don’t bother with all that,” she said. “Tell you what. How about an exchange of info?” That sounded good, she thought. Very cool and professional.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” said Keith soothingly. “But a dialogue would be very helpful, Lois.”
“Mrs Meade,” said Lois.
Keith cleared his throat. “Yes, well,” he said patiently, “would you be able to come down to the station?”
Lois’s laugh was bitter. “Good Lord, no,” she said. “Um, how about at Janice Britton’s, in Farnden? She was very nice to me…” She paused to let that sink in. “…and three heads are better than two,” she added. Then she rang off, pleased with how things were going.
Eleven
The Reverend Peter White awoke as usual to the whistlings and splutterings of starlings under the vicarage roof and for a moment thought quite optimistically of a hot cup of tea, half an hour with the morning paper, and then a stroll round the parish to show his face to an indifferent community. Then he remembered. Gloria Hathaway was dead, murdered by an unknown hand, and he was just as much implicated as any other person in the village. And it was a Lois day.
He pushed back the bedcovers and reached for his dressing gown. It was thin, old and too short to cover his spindly legs. He caught sight of himself in the long mirror in the wardrobe door and shuddered. The very model of a sex maniac, he thought to himself. The thought that Gloria might have been the victim of a jealous lover, crazed by rejection and frustration, would occur to more than one person, he was sure, and he had a mental picture of Gloria in the shower, breasts swinging as she washed off the slurry from the sewage works, from which she had bravely dragged poor Maisie. Well, who knows what a man may do in a moment of blind rage? And then not be able to recall the dreadful crime afterwards, going about his business as if nothing had happened? Poor little Gloria, he thought, shivering as he had a quick clean-up with a cold flannel. He pulled on greyish-white, sagging underpants and a vest that had ceased to be thermal long ago. He hesitated, then clumsily knelt on the rug by his bed to say a lengthy prayer, ending with “May God preserve her soul…and that of anyone else in need of preservation.” This last supplication he added quickly, with a shiver.
Lois’s knocking sent him scuttling downstairs to open the door. “Late up again, I’m afraid, Lois!” he apologised. “But come in, my dear, come in. Would you like a nice cup of tea to warm you up? Just going to make a pot, and some toast. Breakfast for two – what do you say?”
Lois shook her head, as she had so many times before. “No thanks, Vicar,” she said. “I’ll have a cup later on, but I’d like to get started now, if you don’t mind. And excuse me for saying so, but it’s time that dressing gown went in the bin. There’s sales on in Tresham and you could get a nice warm one for next-to-nothing.” She collected dusters, cleaner, a brush and dustpan, and headed for the stairs. “Oh, and by the way,” she added, turning to catch him squinting worriedly at himself in the spotted mirror by the sink. “Would it be all right if I go ten minutes early? I’ll make it up next week. Family business, I’m afraid. Our Josie being a bit of a worry…More important than the Great Farnden Murder Mystery!” This jokey remark was not as casual as it sounded. Lois had planned it on the way over, thinking it might jolt something useful out of the vicar.
She was gratified by Peter White’s reaction. He whipped round and glared at her. “Kindly watch your tongue!” he said in a voice she had never heard before. “I need hardly remind you that poor Miss Hathaway’s death is a very serious business and not one to joke about. I am surprised at you, Lois, and disappointed. And no, you may not go early. I have to go out, and I am also expecting a telephone message. I told the caller that you would be here until twelve o’clock.”
It was on the tip of Lois’s tongue to tell him exactly where to go, but she remembered in time that she needed all the contacts in Farnden she could get. So she shrugged, said that maybe if the call came through before ten to twelve, she could go anyway, and stomped off up the stairs, pondering this aggressive side of Peter White, hitherto unrevealed.
∗
Peter White did not have to go out at all, but now he had to think of something. I could call on the doctor, he improvised, or see how Nurse Surfleet is getting on with the numerous policemen who have plodded up her neighbour’s path. Yes, that was it. He’d try a little counselling of parishioners, though on second thoughts he had distinct qualms about starting with Nurse Surfleet. She was quite likely to dismiss him briskly, or – even worse – turn the tables and worm out of him some of his darkest hidden secrets. She was known for being a sympathetic listener. No, perhaps not Gillian Surfleet. Rachel Barratt, then? She had found the body, so they said. Yes, she was a nice woman, anxious to please and keen to take her place in the village. Yes, he would drop in on Rachel Barratt, and hope that rather dreadful husband of hers was not at home.
He finished dressing and went down to make breakfast. The bread stuck in the toaster, and he extricated the burnt offering, buttered it as best he could, and washed it down with scalding tea. Lois was vacuuming fiercely overhead, and he had to go halfway up the stairs before he could make her hear his voice. “I’m off now, Lois,” he said coldly. “I can’t say when I’ll be back, but your money is in the usual place. And there’s a pad and pencil by the telephone for that message.” And without saying goodbye, he took his coat and slammed the front door behind him. Murder Mystery indeed, he muttered to himself.
“There’ll be plenty of that going on,” he added, as he saw a police car parked outside Doctor Rix’s house. He turned into the Barratts’ and saw with relief that Malcolm’s car was not there. “Good morning, my dear,” he said, as Rachel opened the door. “Might I come in for a minute or two, just for a little chat?”
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br /> “No, sorry,” said Rachel Barratt flatly. “I’ve got a sore throat and I’m going back to bed.” And she shut the door firmly in his face.
No respect for the cloth, thought Peter White sadly, though it was most unlike Mrs Barratt to be impolite, especially to a person such as himself with his position in the village. He hurried off down the drive towards the doctor’s house, remembered the police car, and swerved off towards the shop. He needed some potatoes. At least they couldn’t slam the door on him in the shop. Then the Tresham bus cruised down the street, and as it stopped by the pub, Peter White, on an impulse, boarded it. What am I doing? he thought, as he fumbled for change. Oh well, perhaps the Lord has a plan for me this morning. I might as well follow Him wherever He takes me. Peter White was not being entirely honest with himself. He knew exactly where he would end up in Tresham, and it was not a place likely to be frequented by his dear Lord, or anyone else he knew, with luck.
∗
Lois had finished her usual jobs in the vicarage in record time, finding that without Peter White’s constant and well-meaning interruptions, she could move much faster. She looked around, still quite determined to leave early. The mysterious caller had still not telephoned. Lois frowned. She guessed the vicar had invented his appointment and the telephone call too, and couldn’t think what had put him in such a bad mood. She reflected that in his capacity as moral leader of the village, he might well feel an extra burden of guilt that he had not been able to help Gloria Hathaway, maybe even prevent her dreadful death. Pity he wasn’t a Catholic. Catholic priests knew all about everybody, didn’t they, from the confessional? Lois had fancied becoming a Catholic, reckoning they had it easy. All they had to do was confess their sins, get absolution, and then go off and do the same things all over again.
∗
She decided to turn out the kitchen cupboards and throw out anything beyond its sell-by date. Lois wrinkled her nose at the stale smell as she opened a door. Vicar always smelt a bit, too, she reflected. Wonder what’s his sell-by date? She opened the window and grinned at the thought. Still, if he’d spend a bit of money on himself, clothes, barber, some good food, he could be much improved. Well, perhaps not greatly, but certainly he could look a lot more wholesome, more fanciable. Why hadn’t he got a wife? Not gay, she knew that. A lot of women would like to be married to a vicar…social position and all that. Perhaps he was one of those men who were neither one thing nor the other, like neutered tomcats. Lois thought of the laundry basket upstairs and knew that he certainly had yearnings for something, even if it was a touch kinky. Wouldn’t be the first, but it could end in tears, especially with a vicar! News Of The World, and all that.
“Oh, my God!” Lois sat back on a chair, struck by the dreadful thought. It could have been him. Nobody thought anything of it when he went calling on single women. She herself had sent him off to see Gloria Hathaway when she’d been ill. He’d had the perfect opportunity to plan it all, to ask Gloria if she was going to Open Minds, to discover that she was doing teas, to appear at the back door of the village hall without alarming her…oh yes, it would have been so easy.
A shoal of unused small pots of herbs suddenly cascaded down from the cupboard, bursting open and scattering dry green specks all over the floor, making her jump. “Damn!” said Lois. She fetched the broom and began to sweep for the second time.
It’s certainly possible, her thoughts continued along this unattractive track. No doubt that he could have done it. He had every chance and nobody to check on him at home. But why? Did Gloria know some secret of his that he wanted passionately to conceal? Hopeless love, was that it? Lois consigned all the herbs to the bin, and followed them with half-empty pots of jam, grey with mould, and cereal packets with a few stale flakes rattling around. Ugh! She washed out the top cupboards, dried them and put the few remaining pots and jars back neatly.
Now the bottom cupboards. She glanced at the kitchen clock and saw that she still had half an hour to go. No telephone call yet, but Lois had given up expecting it. The next cupboard contained a tangle of saucepans with greasy bases, lids with dried potato stuck to the rims, all in a heap with cake tins, rusty from the damp and never used. A strange four-legged device that looked like something Nurse Surfleet would use in dire circumstances, turned out to be a juicer from the ark, with lemon pips still clinging to its smelly interior. Lois reached deep into the cupboard and her hand met something cold and hairy. She gasped involuntarily, recoiling with a shudder. Get on with it, gel, she told herself and pulled it out with the handle of the broom. It was a rat, very dead, decomposed beyond putrefaction and light as a feather on the dustpan.
Quite enough for one day, Lois decided, and, tipping the rat into the bin with all the other rubbish, she rinsed the grubby pans quickly, washed out the cupboard with bleach and replaced everything in some kind of order. It was a quarter to twelve and she had promised to be home early to talk to Derek over lunch about Josie, the club, and Melvyn.
In the empty vicarage, the telephone was silent. It was a cold, unfriendly silence, unbroken until Peter White returned alone to his unwelcoming house, whistling sadly to himself.
Twelve
Melvyn and Josie walked slowly, holding hands, along the edge of the muddy canal which wound its way round the backs of warehouses and deserted industrial sites in Tresham. “You should be in school,” he said, but without much conviction. “What did you tell them this time?”
“Said I had to go to the dentist,” said Josie, giving his hand a squeeze. “They never ask for a note or nothin’. I reckon you could bunk off most days and nobody’d care.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Melvin, turning to face her and frowning down into her smiling face. “Bunkin’ off most days’d be pushing it. If you’re up to something, don’t push it. That’s what me and the lads say, and it’s right.”
Josie knew who the lads were and they frightened her. They were in reality a sad little gang of school-leavers with no prospects, no jobs to go to, spurning further education as fit only for nerds, and prowled about the town wasting their last year of school as lawlessly as they could without being caught. Most of them were suspended from school and should have attended special classes at the community centre, but none of them went, and nobody checked. Melvyn was not one of them, but used them when he needed to, and they were flattered by his apparent enjoyment of their company.
Josie stood on her toes and kissed Melvyn’s frowning face. “OK, OK,” she said. “I’ll watch it. Anyway, where shall we go, now I’ve got the time off?” She didn’t much care where they went, so long as she was with Melvyn.
“Want me to show you a secret place?” he said, and grinned.
The factory had been a flourishing business for years, but had failed to compete with the growing number of cheap furniture supermarkets in the area. After a brief struggle, the end had come, bankruptcy declared, and the gates had shut for the last time. The building dated from a time when canal traffic had been an accepted form of transport, and its rear walls bordered the towpath. Now Melvyn led Josie by the hand through a half-open doorway and into a storeroom deep inside the building. Here stood the melancholy remains of a once healthy factory: chairs with broken legs, an oval mirror broken into shards of splintered glass, a rickety bed complete with dirty mattress pushed into one corner. Empty beer cans and used syringes crushed under fleeing feet were evidence of visitors Josie preferred not to think about. She realized with sudden panic that Melvyn was leading her through the detritus to the uninviting bed in the corner.
“I could get done for this, you know,” he said tentatively, bending to kiss her.
“Sod you!” yelled Josie, pulling away from him. “I’m not getting done! Let me go!” But she had no cause for alarm. Melvyn released her at once, and watched her run off with the hint of a smile on his face.
∗
“Well, I don’t like it. She’s too young to go down to that club,” said Lois. “It’s for adults and I should think
they’ve got an age limit anyway.” She and Derek had eaten fish and chips straight from the paper.
“Wipe your hands, gel,” said Derek as Lois handed him an apple. “Everything’ll taste fishy.”
“Don’t change the subject,” said Lois, rinsing her hands under the tap. “Why did you say we’d think about it? And after I’d said she couldn’t? Honestly, Derek, sometimes I think you do it just to annoy. As if I hadn’t got enough to worry about, what with the boys, and Mum, and Christmas, and…and…”
“…and Josie,” said Derek.
“And Josie,” Lois nodded, and put her arms round Derek’s neck.
“Ere, none of that!” he said. “That won’t change me mind. I only told her I’d think about it, anyway.” They sat in silence for a minute and then Derek said, “Perhaps we should find out a bit more about this Melvyn first? Would that make you happier?”
“Depends what we find out,” said Lois grudgingly. But she recognised a climb-down when she saw one, and agreed that they’d do a bit of ferreting about and see what emerged. “Don’t even know his surname,” she said. There was a silence, and then she had a bright idea. “I could ask the postman,” she suggested. “Not much he doesn’t know.”
Derek nodded, and stood up, stretching and smiling. “Got to get going,” he said. “And isn’t it time you got out the notebook and jotted down today’s developments in the case of the strangled spinster…?”
Lois moved towards him, but he was faster on his feet. He turned at the gate and waved. You could say this for Derek, thought Lois with a reluctant smile, he certainly knew when his number was up.
∗
Lois spent a long time with her notebook. Peter White had acted very strangely this morning, very out of character. He’d been jumpy and irritable with her before he went out, which was something she could not remember happening before.