Forgotten Voices

by Jane A. Adams

  Martha listened to her friend’s reassurances but she was unconvinced by them.

  ‘Vera, dear, you don’t sound all right, really you don’t. Look, we had a meeting planned for today, didn’t we, all of us. I think we should keep to our plans. Ellen would have wanted that and she certainly wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone to brood. I’ll pick up Julia and Celia will make her own way as usual. Do you need a lift?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure Celia said she’d try to come.’ Celia Marsden was not the most active participant in their little group, but she was chief donor of the more expensive flowers and so Martha was always careful to keep on the right side of her. ‘I’ll give her a call, Vera. If she can’t make it, then the rest of us will have a nice cup of tea and a chat. You shouldn’t be sitting there on your own, really you shouldn’t.’

  Martha smiled as Vera reluctantly agreed. ‘You know I’m right, dear. We old ‘uns should stick together, especially at a time like this.’

  As she put the phone back on its cradle, Martha reflected that perhaps that last comment was not as sensitive as it might have been. Ellen, after all, hadn’t had the chance to grow old.

  Vera Courtney stared at the phone, in two minds whether or not to call back and tell Martha that she couldn’t face an afternoon of tea and talk; but in her heart she knew that her friend was right. If she stayed here by herself, she’d only spend the afternoon crying and Vera really couldn’t face that idea. Better to be with people, to have to exercise the self-control that being in a public place demanded, better to talk to those who had known Ellen and had liked and cared about her than to stay alone to grieve.

  Martha had commented on how close Vera had been to the younger woman but Vera doubted even Ellen herself had realized just what Vera felt about her. In the ten years she had known Ellen Tailor, ever since she volunteered to help out with the flowers, the two had been friends. It had been such an easy relationship, right from the start, Vera thought, and as time went on Ellen had begun to confide in her, talk about the family she had married into and the conflicts that were blighting an otherwise happy marriage.

  Vera, who had lived in the village all her life, knew Daphne Tailor and the rest of the family and was fully aware of what Ellen had married into.

  ‘You never got married?’ Ellen asked her.

  ‘Sadly, no. I had a young man, but things didn’t work out. It was hard for us, I suppose. I was five when the war ended and after my father didn’t come back, my mother married again and that didn’t last. Or rather, it lasted, but it was never happy. I suppose it made me cautious and when my young man proposed, I should have said yes but I didn’t and after a while he found someone else and that was that.’

  Vera hadn’t spoken about him for years. Bobby had been such a lovely boy and she should have trusted him, but that was a long time ago.

  ‘That’s sad,’ Ellen had said and Vera remembered the sympathy in the younger woman’s eyes. ‘When my mother died, my father fell apart. He killed himself. Vera, I’m never sure if I should feel pity for him because he loved her so much or just feel angry with him for deserting us. Do you think that’s a bad thing to feel?’

  ‘No,’ Vera told her. ‘Right or wrong doesn’t enter into it. We feel what we feel. My mother never stopped loving my father, but I know a small part of her was furious with him for not coming home to her, even though she knew there was nothing he could do about it.’

  We feel what we feel, Vera thought now. Ellen had understood what she meant by that. She had understood a great many things about Vera and Vera felt she had understood a great many things about Ellen. Vera had loved her like the daughter she had never had. She cherished the time they spent together and now, she felt utterly and completely bereft, the more so because no one else knew how she had felt about Ellen and so no one could possibly understand the depth of her grief.

  SEVEN

  William Trent opened the door and then ushered them inside. ‘That Brigstock woman phoned me,’ he said. ‘Informed me that I’d be getting a visit.’

  He gestured towards a couple of chairs set either side of the window and took a third, set by the fire. It wasn’t lit, but already laid for later. Mac glanced around. The cottage was very small. This living room, and a tiny room off that was lined with books. A kitchen on the other side of the narrow hall and Mac guessed there’d be two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs at the very most. It had been an estate cottage, Frank had told him. For the farm workers on the Breed Estate. This and three others had been sold off a few years earlier, being right on the edge of the estate and, Frank had informed him, needing a lot of work and expense to bring them up to modern specifications. Two had been sold off as holiday lets, and William Trent had purchased this cottage, Stone End, with its very pretty garden.

  ‘So, you want to ask me what?’ William Trent leaned back in the chair and clasped his hands across his slight pot belly. He had ignored Yolanda since she sat down, focused all of his attention on Mac.

  ‘You were a friend of Ellen Tailor, I believe.’

  ‘Obviously. If I hadn’t known the woman, you’d not be here.’

  ‘Did you know her well?’

  ‘Do any of us know anyone well?’

  Mac bit down on his irritation. ‘When did you last see her? And incidentally, I am assuming the answer to that last question would be yes. The children referred to you as Uncle Bill.’

  ‘Then why ask it?’ Trent demanded. ‘If you can’t ask anything sensible then I suggest you go. I can’t abide fools, Inspector. Not at any price.’

  ‘So Ellen Tailor wasn’t a fool,’ Yolanda said.

  William Trent scowled at her.

  ‘And I’m assuming you didn’t think the children were fools either. I can’t see you tolerating them calling you Uncle Bill if you thought they were idiots.’

  The scowl deepened, but Yolanda seemed untroubled by it. Mac watched curiously, the young woman suddenly going up a notch in his estimation.

  ‘How are they?’ Trent asked abruptly. ‘I heard they found her,’ he added and Mac was surprised to see the genuine concern in his eyes.

  ‘They’d just walked up the lane from the school bus,’ he said. ‘They walked into the kitchen and saw her on the floor and thought she’d hurt herself or fainted. So they ran to help her. Whoever shot her had used both barrels at close range. Shot her in the face.’

  William Trent closed his eyes for a moment and Mac was both gladdened by his response and angry with himself for saying so much; for wanting to shock.

  ‘She was a bright woman,’ he said. ‘In both senses of the word. Intelligent and—’

  Yolanda opened her mouth to say something more and then shut it again, a slight frown creasing her forehead. Mac wondered at it.

  ‘And the children?’ he asked.

  ‘She’d raised them to be curious. Not to be puddings. I can’t abide pudding people. There are too many of them these days. Content just to sit there and let life happen to them. Ellen wasn’t like that and neither are her children.’

  ‘Did you know her husband?’

  ‘No. He’d died before I came to live here.’

  ‘Did Mrs Tailor talk about him much? Did the children?’

  ‘Of course they did. He’d been a good husband and father. Ellen loved him. You don’t stop loving someone just because they’ve passed away. Her husband was still a tangible presence in that house, in all the decisions she made.’

  ‘Even when she sold off part of the farm?’

  ‘Especially then. What her relatives couldn’t accept was that they’d been planning the sale even before he became ill.’

  ‘And did she say why?’

  ‘I’d have thought that was obvious?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but no. It’s not.’

  William Trent sighed and leant back in his chair. ‘Farming has always been a tough business,’ he said. ‘The Tailors ran a big dairy herd. It was taking them all their time just to keep heads above water. Ellen told me
if it hadn’t been for those tax credit things she’d not have been able to feed the kids sometimes. So they wanted to downsize, to release some capital so they could fix up the farmhouse and have a cushion in case of bad times to come. The family blamed Ellen, said she should never have married Jebediah if she couldn’t cope with the farming. When they found out he was ill they put pressure on him to leave the farm to the brother and his wife. But she’s not the kind of woman to be pushed around like that and Jebediah left the whole kit and caboodle to her and the kids and wrapped it up so tight they couldn’t challenge a word of the will.’

  William Trent tapped the arm of his chair as though to emphasize the point. ‘As it should be,’ he said. ‘Ellen had a good head on her shoulders and she could see a damn sight more clearly than any of that lot.’

  He shook his head. ‘And now she’s gone. Looks like they’ll get what they were after, doesn’t it?’

  ‘You think the family might have been involved in Ellen’s murder?’ Yolanda sounded sceptical and Trent’s glance in her direction was withering.

  ‘Who else?’ he said. ‘Bloody inbreds and halfwits the whole lot of them.’

  ‘Did Ellen run the place single-handed?’ Mac asked.

  ‘No, no not entirely. She had a man come in most days. Terry … something. He’d worked for her husband and he stayed on to help her out. I mean, she paid him for it, of course. But he seemed loyal to her. Not that I had a lot to do with him.’

  ‘Another halfwit?’ Yolanda asked.

  ‘My dear,’ Trent said with heavy emphasis, ‘there are few people who are not.’

  Mac could see Yolanda start to bristle. ‘When did you last see Ellen Tailor?’ he asked.

  Trent turned his attention back to Mac. ‘Tuesday afternoon,’ he said. ‘I saw her two days ago. I walked over. The footpath that runs at the back of her place, you can pick it up at the end of the lane, here. You’ll see the stile and the sign as you walk back to your car. And yes, she was fine and no, she didn’t seem worried about anything.’

  Trent pushed himself out of the deep armchair and waited for Mac and Yolanda to do the same. Mac waited for a moment or two before he obliged; long enough for Trent to become irritated. Then he took a card from his pocket and laid it on the arm of Trent’s chair. He tapped it for emphasis, as Trent had done earlier. ‘My card, should you think of anything,’ he said.

  ‘Where next?’ Yolanda asked as they arrived back at the car.

  Mac fished the map from the glove compartment and laid it out on the bonnet.

  ‘We’re not going to walk anywhere are we?’

  ‘You don’t like walking?’

  ‘Oh, sure, when there are people and shops and footpaths. I’m not one for hiking. I’m really not.’

  ‘What did you notice in the cottage?’ he asked. ‘There was a moment when you looked as though you wanted to say something and then you stopped yourself.’

  She frowned. The moment had clearly slipped from her mind.

  ‘Trent talked about Ellen being a bright woman,’ Mac recalled. ‘Intelligent and—’

  ‘Oh. Yes. I suppose I was about to ask him if he’d fancied her. Then I thought maybe I’d better not. Then I saw the picture on the bookcase and it threw me a bit.’

  ‘Picture?’

  ‘Oh, you couldn’t see if from where you were sitting. It was in that little ante room. Study or whatever, next to the sitting room.’

  Mac nodded. ‘And it was a picture of?’

  ‘Old grumpy guts,’ she said. ‘Him and a woman. But the way he was looking at her, it was like there was no one else like her in the whole damned world. Made me wish someone had looked at me like that, you know. So I thought, maybe, I wouldn’t ask if he fancied Ellen Tailor.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Mac said. ‘Well, we’ll be checking out our Mr Trent. Look,’ he said, pointing at the map. ‘This is where we are now, just down from the stile and footpath he mentioned. If you follow the track along, it comes out here, on the main road just past the farm. How long do you reckon it would take to walk there?’

  She shrugged. ‘What’s the scale … so maybe twenty minutes?’ She looked suspiciously at Mac. ‘Oh, no. We are going to walk it, aren’t we?’

  Mac shook his head. ‘I thought I’d leave that to you,’ he said. ‘I’ll drive back and pick you up. It you’re right we should arrive at about the same time. Your route is much more direct than going back by road.’

  He left her glaring at him.

  EIGHT

  From his bedroom window William Trent watched the two police officers walk back up the lane. He could just see the back of their car but after that the lane turned and he lost sight of the two figures. He was surprised to see the woman return. Trent frowned, assuming she must have forgotten to ask him something. He prepared for a knock at the door but instead she paused next to the stile that led on to the footpath he had told them about.

  From his vantage point he could see her clearly, tell by the set of her shoulders that she wasn’t pleased. He heard the car engine start and heard the sound of it pulling away. The woman heard it too and turned to look. William Trent could imagine her glare. He chuckled to himself. ‘So he’s left you to walk to the farm, has he? Well, it’ll do you good, burn some of that fat off.’

  He watched as she climbed the stile and lowered herself carefully down on to the path. To be fair, Bill thought, she wasn’t really fat, just carrying a bit too much around the arse for his liking. But then again, he didn’t really feel like being fair. Life wasn’t fair so why the hell should he bother?

  He watched for long enough to satisfy himself that she really had taken the path and wasn’t about to come back and bother him and then he went back down the stairs and into his tiny little study. I should be working, he thought, but the idea of writing up the notes he had made over the past few days and transcribing the interviews he had done the week before just defeated him. Instead, he put on his walking boots and followed the police officer down the path that led to Ellen’s farm.

  So, how long did it take you?’ Mac asked. As he’d suspected she might, Yolanda had reached the farm ahead of him and was sipping at a cup of tea kindly provided by her colleagues still on duty there.

  She glared at him. ‘Twenty-three minutes exactly. What took you so long?’

  Mac ignored the tone. He’d taken his time on the drive and pulled into a lay-by, he knew where he could get a decent phone signal and spent fifteen minutes making phone calls to arrange their next set of interviews.

  ‘What can you see from the ridge?’

  Yolanda groaned.

  ‘Come on, you can show me. You can bring your tea.’

  The path the killer was believed to have taken was still cordoned. Yolanda had climbed the fence a little further on and now Mac followed her back the way she had come. He knew he’d have to make the walk himself at some point; but not today. Later, when he could either do it alone or with Frank Baker. Mac would welcome the older man’s observations and local knowledge.

  ‘Is it an easy walk?’

  ‘Well, it’s pretty flat, I suppose. A couple of stiles and a field full of cows. I knew there’d be cows. To be honest there’s not much to see for a lot of it. Just a load of trees and hedges but you get a good view about halfway along and there are other connecting paths going off too. One leads to the coast, apparently. But you needn’t think I’m walking that one, Sir.’

  Mac found himself wondering if Rina Martin had walked those particular footpaths. Rina was a great walker and, much to Tim’s dismay, often tried to drag her youngest lodger along on her excursions. More recently, she’d included Joy in her invitations and poor Tim had been most put out to discover that his fiancée actually enjoyed country rambles.

  Mac, well Mac was pretty sanguine about the whole idea, but he had learnt quickly on moving down here that road was often the longest way between A and B and that he’d better get to know the alternatives.

  Yolanda was slightly breathl
ess as they reached the ridge, but she’d held on to her mug of tea and Mac, slightly envious now, watched as she drank it. ‘You get a good view of the farm,’ she said. ‘And I bet you could hide really well up here. There’s plenty of cover. The CSI think the killer waited somewhere about there.’ She pointed to a small cordoned area beneath what Mac thought might be a beech tree. In front of the tree a thicket of bramble and nettle formed a natural screen. As he moved closer he could see where a gap had been created in the brambles and squatting down to look through it, Mac got a good view of the farmyard and the kitchen window and even a little of the kitchen.

  ‘It’s a perfect spot,’ he said, ‘and I suspect a well-used one. Look, you can see a narrow trail leading from the path down to the tree.’

  ‘Looks like a rabbit trail to me,’ Yolanda said. ‘Doesn’t look wide enough for a person.’

  ‘It’s only grass,’ Mac pointed out. ‘There’s no foliage to push through, nothing to leave your mark on. You walk carefully enough it’s plenty wide enough and to the rest of the world, yes, it’s just another rabbit trail.’

  ‘So the killer watched her before today.’

  ‘Of course he did. He knew her habits, her routines. Could probably count on the fact that she’d be in the kitchen in the middle of the afternoon. Whoever did it must have known Ellen Tailor and her family.’

  ‘Or they must have known the path. Maybe just chanced on the farm. Maybe just paused here one day, saw a potential victim, came back often enough to establish a pattern and then took a chance.’

  Mac frowned, conceded she did have a point.

  ‘But you’re not convinced?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. But I’m prepared to keep an open mind. The one mitigation against your theory is that a stranger would stand out.’

  ‘A stranger might stand out if anyone saw them. Look, I was on that blasted path for almost half an hour. I saw no one, not even a farmer in the field. Chances are you could walk this way ten days in a row and not have anyone see you and if they did? Well, the locals would just think ‘tourist’ and blank them. So long as they dressed the part, no one would think anything of it, and this time of year, even if they didn’t dress the part, anyone noticing a stranger in shorts and flip flops would just assume it was some stupid townie strayed too far from the beach.’