by Ann Purser
“Think about it, Lois,” answered her mother. “What really matters? He’s still the same old Derek; a good husband and father. What’s important is that he still loves you – which he does, of course – and you both have a lovely family, home and jobs. Some people would give their eye teeth – ”
“I know, I know,” said Lois. “Well, I expect you must be getting back now,” she said unkindly, and ushered her mother to the door.
Later, though, she pondered over what her mother had said and knew it was sensible advice. She was still angry, though, and knew that Derek had to suffer some more for his transgression.
∗
Then, when she was still feeling adrift, without the firm footing at home that had given her confidence, there was another confrontation for Lois the next day. She was not looking forward to it. She had to discover why Gillian Surfleet had known about Derek visiting Gloria and had said nothing. Common sense told her that there was no reason why Nurse Surfleet should have mentioned it to her, but still…She probably assumed Lois knew about it. To an incurious neighbour, an electrician turning up at Gloria’s cottage on more than one occasion, meant nothing more than that he was doing an electrician’s job in a house riddled with electrical problems.
Well, he was on the job, that’s for sure, thought Lois, reluctant to listen to common sense, and I reckon Gillian knew all about it. There’s a lot she knows, according to Derek.
The nurse’s cottage was warm and Lois took off her coat in the small kitchen. “Hot in here,” she said abruptly. Nurse Surfleet was in her chairman of the parish council role this morning, seated at the table surrounded by council papers, working on village business.
Of course she knew, Lois assured herself. She knows everything that goes on in Farnden. “I’d like you to tell me something,” Lois continued, dispensing with polite frills.
“I’m rather busy, Lois,” said Gillian, brusquely. “Can’t it wait?”
“No,” said Lois flatly.
“Well…all right.” Gillian looked apprehensive. “We could have a coffee break now, if you like, though it’s earlier than usual.” Lois quickly made coffee and set it down. “Now then,” said Gillian in a brisk voice. “Sit down and tell me what’s up.”
“Would you say you were my friend?” Lois looked at her, unsmiling.
Gillian looked surprised. “Of course I am, you know that,” she said.
“If you thought there was something I ought to know, would you tell me? Even if it was likely to hurt?”
There was a long silence, during which Gillian studied her hands, bit the end of her pencil and shuffled her papers. Finally, she spoke quietly. “I know what you’re talking about, Lois,” she said. “It’s Derek, isn’t it. Yes, I knew about it, but it was such a little thing – ”
Lois gasped. “A little thing!” she shouted. “My God, if you were a married woman you’d know that your husband knocking off another woman is a big thing!”
Gillian’s eyes widened and she put her hand in front of her mouth. Perhaps she had not expected such vehemence. Lois had shaken her, but she was quick to regain her composure, stood up and walked round to where Lois was sitting. She put a hand on her shoulder, and Lois had great difficulty in not brushing it away.
“It’ll fade,” she assured Lois. “As time goes by it will fall into place. Don’t be too hard on him. Gloria Hathaway could be very persuasive…” Her voice was sad now, and she squeezed Lois’s shoulder in a way that was not wholly pleasant. Lois was silent, thinking hard. “Am I forgiven, then?” Gillian walked back to her seat, and began turning over papers. “Or have I got the sack?” she added, looking up at Lois with a smile.
Lois sighed. “Nope,” she said. “I need the money.”
They hardly spoke again before Lois left, but as she went out of the door to her car, Gillian Surfleet called her back. “Look,” she said. Her voice was odd, and Lois felt a shiver of apprehension. “I want to show you something.” She went to her desk and pulled out a newspaper clipping. It was old and yellowing with a photograph and some text.
“That was Gloria, when she was still at school. Champion that year at swimming,” she said. The picture showed a slight, slim girl in a black swimsuit posed against the sun. Her smile was wide and her hair long and glinting. “She was lovely once, you know,” said Gillian. “And she knew it. Don’t be too hard on Derek, my dear.”
Lois fled. “Something stinks,” she muttered to herself, and drove off much too fast. She felt like rushing home and having a hot shower, but until she calmed down and slowed down to a reasonable speed along the country lanes, she could not acknowledge what she had known for a long time. “Oh no, what a mess,” she said at last. She felt sad and sick at heart for Gillian Surfleet, in spite of everything. It was true, then, what Derek had said about her. There was love – lust, even – in the way she had stroked that creased bit of newspaper.
Lois had much to think about and when she went upstairs for a pee she didn’t question that Josie’s bedroom door was not standing open as usual. It was firmly shut and though it registered with Lois, she thought no more about it. Derek would be home at any minute for his lunch and she put on some water for boil-in-the-bag cod steaks. Quick and easy and not all that bad for you, she thought. Anyway, I don’t feel like slaving over a hot stove for my lord and master just at the moment.
She stood waiting for the water to boil and thought again about Josie. Maybe she had come back for something and shut her door behind her? She had a key of her own now. Lois dropped the plastic bag in the water and went back upstairs to check. She pushed open the door and peered into a darkened room. “Josie?” The curtains were drawn, and Lois could make out a hump on the bed that was Josie, curled up under the duvet, either fast asleep or pretending to be so.
“Are you OK?” she said gently. Josie had been very quiet lately, but Lois could not remember exactly when it had started. After Melvyn left, she supposed. She felt guilty that her own troubles had taken up all her thoughts. She should have asked Josie, tried to find out what was wrong.
“Josie? Aren’t you feeling well?”
A muffled voice said, “Go away,” but Lois sat down on the edge of the bed. “Please, Mum,” said the voice. “I’ve got a sore throat, so they sent me home. It’s really bad and I just want to sleep.” Lois frowned. A sore throat didn’t sound bad enough to be sent home for. Still, perhaps it was ‘flu. There was a lot of it about. “Shall I get you a hot drink, love?” she offered.
“Just leave me alone.” Josie was shaking, but Lois couldn’t tell if it was crying or the start of a temperature. She stood up and walked to the door. “Try to sleep, then,” she said. “I’ll come up again a bit later. See how you are.”
Derek was worried. “She’s not been right for quite a while,” he said. “You don’t think…?”
Lois’s reply was sharp. “Think she’s pregnant? Or on something? Well, it could be either. But then again, it could be ‘flu. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt, shall we? Not everyone has a guilty secret.” She might as well have slapped his face.
“Fair enough,” he said, and without touching his ice-cream, he put on his coat and left. He didn’t say goodbye and he certainly did not blow her a kiss. Her heart rose again when the door opened and he poked his head back round the door, but all he said was, “Better get the doc if she’s no better by teatime.” And then he was gone again.
Well done, Lois. You really handled that well. She cleared away the dishes and washed up. Maybe a little quiet thinking would be good for her. She took out her notebook and began to write. Doctor, vicar and professor…and businessman? Thank God she didn’t have to add electrician, since Derek had been safe in the bosom of his family that night. But now the nurse. Any one of them could have strangled the very lovely Gloria Hathaway. None of them had a watertight alibi. The doctor had said he had driven to the other side of the county to see a friend who was not at home, the vicar was on his own in the vicarage, but had no witness
es to prove it, and the professor said he’d been waylaid on his way to the pub by a motorist asking the way to Tresham. Lois reckoned this had delayed him by just enough time for him to have nipped up to the village hall, done the deed, and been in the pub by the time Don Cutt remembered seeing him. Then there was Dallas Baer. Lois had not forgotten that row about jealousy and suspicion, and Evangeline’s disastrous fall, while he had stood by and watched. He’d been at home on his own that night. Now, of course, they were all lovey dovey, but she wouldn’t trust him round the corner, smarmy bugger.
And Gillian Surfleet? She was strong. Her arm muscles were well developed from heaving old ladies about. If she’d been in love with Gloria herself – and been spurned – she might have been unhinged enough to take revenge. Lois did her best to imagine the strength of feeling Gillian might have had for her unfriendly neighbour. Maybe Gloria hadn’t always been quite so unfriendly? Where had that faded newspaper cutting come from? Had Gillian known Gloria as a girl? Perhaps they had been at school together. Started as a schoolgirl crush, perhaps. They must have been about the same age. Gillian was perhaps a few years older, but they could still have coincided for a year or two. Ah, there were still so many unanswered questions.
∗
Had Gillian been at the Open Minds meeting that night? Lois knew she was a member, and if she’d been there it would certainly knock her off the suspect list. Keith Simpson would know. Perhaps she should give him a ring anyway. She should keep him sweet, if only to make use of him. What could she tell him as a reason for ringing? She didn’t want to set him onto Gillian until she had found out much more about her. Well, she would think of something.
In the end it was easy. “Hello, Lois,” he said. “Nice to hear from you. Need some help?”
“I’m not sure I’ve got that Open Minds meeting quite straight,” she said. “Who was there and who wasn’t. Nurse Surfleet, for instance?”
“Rachel Barratt was, definitely,” he said, after a small pause. “And Mary Rix. But not Nurse Surfleet. She was on duty, apparently. I remember that distinctly, because she was annoyed that the old woman she went to see in Ringford was fast asleep in her chair and wouldn’t let her in. Could see her through the window, Gillian said, but couldn’t wake her up. What a job, eh, Lois? Still, I suppose it’s like ours in a way, dealing with people in trouble. Anyway, is that a help?” Keith had his instructions, and was following them to the letter.
Lois thanked him and took up her pen again, adding Nurse Surfleet to the short list of suspects. Doctor, nurse, businessman, vicar and professor. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief…murderer. This Long Farnden group were important people in the village and all with a lot to lose. If Derek was right, Gloria Hathaway had been trouble, a dangerous person to know. Once in her clutches, he’d said, it’d be hell to break away.
“You managed it,” she’d said acidly.
“I could see the way the wind was blowing,” he had replied bluntly. “Easy for me. I didn’t care tuppence about her. It was just – ”
“I can just imagine what it was,” said Lois, and she had shut him up then. It was the last thing she wanted to talk about, but now she needed to know more, and Derek could tell her. She glanced at the clock. Time to check on Josie. She closed her notebook with a snap.
Thirty
Peter White drove through Tresham and out on the Ringford road. He was sure Lois had said this was the way. He had never before had any reason to visit the Churchill Estate, but now he could not wait until tomorrow, when it was his Lois day. He had to talk to her now, before he drove himself mad in his quiet, chilly vicarage. He was not sure how much she knew about Long Farnden, but suspected her perambulations round the village had given her considerable insight into what was going on. It had come to him suddenly – as he was shaving – that Lois could be very vulnerable, in danger, even. She might know too much. He’d known what was going on long before Gloria Hathaway had been murdered and was well aware that he should try to put a stop to it. But how could he, implicated as he was himself? He knew that the old-time Farnden inhabitants looked on with contempt at the newcomers, and that included him.
The ringleader had been Malcolm Barratt, of course. It had all been cooked up in the pub one night when they’d had too many pints. They all drank pints, of course. They were country people now, and country people drank pints of warm, flat beer and played darts and dominoes. They’d ousted old Fred from his time-honoured position as captain of the dominoes, and organized tournaments with pubs from other villages, where similar teams of newcomers had taken over the best seats by the fire and put computer-generated notices on the notice-board exhorting everyone to join this and that, take part in quizzes which the old guard despised, could never answer the questions and saw no reason why they should. Yes, Malcolm Barratt and Dallas Baer had been the ringleaders, bounding into the village like overgrown Tiggers, without biding their time or waiting to take their natural places in the hierarchy of village life.
Peter White slowed down and wound down his window. “Excuse me,” he called to a middle-aged woman walking on the opposite side of the road. “Can you direct me to the Churchill Estate?”
Lois’s mother looked at the parson in his rusty old car and wondered what he wanted with the Churchill. “You’re practically in it,” she said. “Turn right over there and that’s it. What road did you want?”
“Byron Way…a Mrs Meade.”
“Ah,” said Lois’s mother, her face bland.
She did not believe in giving anything away for free. “Second on the left, then turn right. You can’t miss it.”
As Peter White drove off, she wondered what on earth the parson wanted with Lois. Then she remembered. Lois cleaned for a Reverend in Long Farnden. Probably him. Weedy-looking specimen, she considered. She wondered if his visit had anything to do with her daughter’s marital problems, but dismissed that thought at once.
∗
Lois poured steaming water on to a lemony cold cure and took the mug carefully upstairs. “Josie? Are you awake? I’ve brought you a drink, love. It’ll do you good.” She pushed open the door and walked in.
Josie was on fire. Her face was scarlet and every limb trembled to Lois’s touch. Her hair was wet with perspiration and her nightdress clung to her body as if she’d just emerged from a bath. Her eyes were half-open and she mumbled something which Lois could not catch.
“Oh my God!” Lois rushed to the bathroom for the thermometer, but could not get Josie to put it in her mouth. Well, for God’s sake, she didn’t need a thermometer to tell her Josie had a very high fever! She rushed downstairs, and was about to lift the telephone receiver when the doorbell rang. She pulled open the door, saw Peter White standing there, and without querying this unusual visitor, dragged him into the house.
“Quick,” she said, “help me wrap her up and then you can drive us to the hospital.”
His mouth dropped open. “But, Lois…”
“But nothing,” she said. “Don’t argue. Just do what I tell you and I’ll explain later.”
They bundled Josie into a warm blanket and manhandled her downstairs and out into Peter White’s car. The trembling was worse, and her eyes seemed to have rolled up into her head.
“Quicker, for God’s sake,” said Lois.
“Shouldn’t we have waited for an ambulance?” he said tentatively.
“You could wait for ever,” Lois said. “She could be dead by the time they arrived.” This abrupt statement galvanised Peter White. He put his foot down as hard as it would go and shot lights that were turning to red. They swung round corners, narrowly missed cyclists and frightened an old dog ambling along the curb. “Hold tight,” Peter White said, as the hospital finally came into sight.
Another set of lights were turning red and Lois had a quick look from left to right. “Nothing coming,” she said, and they shot over the crossing into the hospital entrance.
By now, Josie was limp in Lois’s a
rms, and it took all Peter White’s best efforts to help them into reception. A nurse looked expertly at Josie and to Lois’s huge relief, took over.
Peter White stood quietly, his face anxious, but he had Lois’s hand in a firm grasp. He was still there three hours later, when Josie’s face, now as white as the sheets covering her, was at rest on the pillows.
“Is she…?” Lois’s voice trembled uncontrollably.
“She’ll be fine, Mrs Meade,” said the sister. “It’ll take a while. A very nasty infection. But you got her here in time and with rest and antibiotics she’ll be fine. She’s young and that’s a big advantage in itself!”
Pneumonia, the young Indian doctor had said. He had been so gentle and kind, and when Lois had finally collapsed and couldn’t stop crying, he’d whispered to Peter White that he should stay and look after her.
“Are you Mr Meade?” the doctor had asked and the vicar had shaken his head vigorously.
“No, no, just a friend.” He had felt ridiculously pleased to be mistaken for Lois’s husband. And Josie’s father. He had a sudden vision of what he had missed. “I’ll just go and get us a cup of tea, Lois,” he said. “If you’ll be OK by yourself for a minute or two?” He felt strong and responsible for something that really mattered. When he returned with mugs of tea, he saw a man standing by the bed, close to Josie.
“Thanks a lot, Vicar,” said Lois, standing up. “This is my husband, Derek. They got hold of him and he came straight over.” She was whispering and he noticed her hand now clutching Derek’s.
“Oh, right,” Peter White said. “You’ll be all right now, then. Not need me any more?” They shook their heads kindly at him.
“Thanks a lot,” whispered Lois. “I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you hadn’t…well, you know…”
“Oh no,” said Peter White. “It was just lucky…Well, I’ll be off now. Let me know if…well, you’ve got Derek now, and I’m sure…”