Jane Hetherington's Adventures In Detection

by Nina Jon

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said abruptly. “Have you managed to follow the right car yet?”

  “Mrs Wilson are you sitting down? Because I’m afraid I have some very unpleasant news to break to you.”

  Orla listened in silence while Jane spoke. When Jane had finished, Orla said, “Are you telling me, woman, that my husband is a bigamist?”

  “I’m afraid that would appear to be the case, yes.”

  “How dare you? How dare you ring me at my home to tell me my husband isn’t my husband and my kid is illegitimate! That is what you’re telling me isn’t it, woman?” Orla demanded, her voice growing ever shriller.

  “It rather depends on the chain of events,” Jane said weakly.

  “I married my husband in a church, Mrs Hetherington,” Orla said.

  “That’s as may be,” Jane tried to explain.

  “We married in a church, we met through our church. He sings in the choir, for God’s sake! He is a man of God, woman, a man of God! Not a criminal!” Orla shrieked down the phone. “What you are saying is that the man is a miserable sinner and so am I!”

  Jane knew this conversation wasn’t going to be easy.

  “You’ve obviously been following the wrong man, the whole time woman.”

  “Mrs Wilson, I can assure you that I followed your husband. I followed the man you told me to. The man I saw kiss you and your children goodbye on the doorstep. The man who is not only father to your children, but to two other children, born to another woman, whom he married when he was still married to someone else, just like he was when he married you. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you must believe me.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re lying. Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making up such vile lies, woman? Is it because you’re old and bitter?”

  Jane ignored these comments and tried to keep calm.

  “Mrs Wilson, I am not lying. We’re going to have to go to the police about this. There are other people involved here. I believe your husband may be about to marry again when he is still married to you and to those other women. He may even have another child by this woman if we don’t stop him.”

  “Go to the police? With lies about my own husband? I am not going to do any such thing and you’re not either woman, if you know what’s good for you. I will not let you ruin my happiness because you have none left of your own. If what you tell me is true, how then do you explain my husband being at my home with me, at the same time you say you saw him with another woman in another city? I have friends from my church who were here with us, and who will support my story and prove you to be a liar.”

  Jane could not explain this for the moment, but she knew what she’d seen.

  Orla’s rant continued. “I can prove it. We went into town in the afternoon. Our friends saw us there. We will be on CCTV. So you see, I know you are lying. I’ve a good mind to get you closed down!”

  While Jane didn’t try to interrupt her, she did hold the phone away from her ear to avoid being deafened.

  “And don’t think I’m going to pay your bill either, woman,” Orla screamed, slamming the phone down.

  “Well, that went better than I thought it would,” Jane said, replacing the receiver.

  II

  She went straight around to her neighbour’s house to repeat the conversation.

  “She said what?” Charity said, walking over to join Jane at the kitchen table.

  “Think of it from her point of view,” Jane said, a mug of tea in hand. “She’s a devout Christian, very much in love with her husband, a man she believes shares her principles, then I ring her up and deliver what could best be described as a bombshell.”

  “After she asked you to follow him,” Charity pointed out. “If it was me, I’d follow him myself. Check the story out with my own eyes.”

  “But, if she did that, she would discover it was true and she doesn’t want to believe that, does she?”

  At that moment, Jack walked into the kitchen and over to the fridge.

  “What are you two talking about?” he wanted to know.

  “One of Jane’s clients won’t believe what Jane has found out about her husband,” his sister explained.

  Jack helped himself to a can of fizzy drink and joined them at the table. “I read somewhere that even when people pay a private detective like Jane to follow their spouse because they think they’re cheating on them, and the private detective comes back with photographs and stuff which proves that their husband or wife is cheating on them, the person who paid the detective in the first place, more often than not refuses to believe the evidence.”

  “I can’t believe that, Jack,” Charity said.

  “Jack is quite right,” Jane said. “Apparently that does happen quite a lot. It’s something a private detective has to be prepared for. Denial, anger, depression and finally acceptance. Classic defence mechanisms.”

  “Why have they paid someone to follow their other half, then?” Charity wanted to know.

  “For reassurance, not the truth, unless the truth is that their spouse isn’t cheating on them.” Jane said.

  “I thought I was gullible,” Charity said. “What I want to know, is what’s he living on?”

  “I rather presume it’s a combination of the state, handouts from friends and relatives, and the women themselves, of course. Orla isn’t in paid employment, but the other two probably are. I suspect that’s why he’s got himself another girlfriend.”

  “How do you explain him being in two places at the same time? Do you think she made it up to save face, or is she just mad?” Charity clicked her fingers. “I know – she wanted to stop you from going to the police so her name isn’t dragged through the mud.”

  “She seemed very sure of her facts, and adamant she could prove it. I’m not sure she made it up. I wonder if there’s another explanation,” Jane said.

  “Yeah, she’s mad,” Charity said.

  “You know the Bailey sisters are off to New York?” Jack said. “All care of the All American Broadcasting Corporation. It’s so unfair. No one’s invited me and I found everything out.”

  “The satisfaction of having helped the sisters should be reward enough, Jack,” Charity said.

  “Well it isn’t.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Fifteen Minutes of Fame

  I

  Felix drove to the council offices, but couldn’t get into the car park due to the number of vehicles parked in it. Forced to park elsewhere, he returned on foot. He knew that in a few days time, a Rolls-Royce driven by a chauffeur wearing a peaked cap, would pull up outside the wool shop to take the Bailey sisters to the airport for the start of their journey to the States. No doubt they’d be feted by the best of New York society, accompanied everywhere by an AABC camera crew.

  Felix smiled at the thought of the extravaganza. He even imagined a Vice-President of AABC saying, “I want the old gals treated like royalty. Royalty – you hear. Give ‘em the red-carpet treatment. Take ‘em everywhere by a chauffeur driven Rolls-Royce, with champagne in the back.”

  “I think they are all teetotal,” one of his assistants might have pointed out.

  “Okay, homemade lemonade then.”

  He could do no more than wish them all the best. They might as well make the most of the fame they were suddenly enjoying, for if not now, when? He hoped they took the opportunity to indulge themselves a little, for up to now, theirs had been a life of abstinence and frugality, and not a little disappointment. Who knows, he thought, they might let their hair down – literally.

  As he got closer to the council building, he saw both the head and the deputy head of the council standing at the top of the building’s wide flight of stairs, addressing a noisy crowd gathered by the base of the stairs. He wondered what on earth was going on.

  As he grew closer he realised the noisy crowd were journalists who, as Felix grew closer, continuously fired hostile questions at the council leaders, who tried answering t
hem as calmly and confidently as they could. Felix didn’t know why his council colleagues bothered themselves, for no sooner did one or other begin to answer a question, than they were interrupted by another question. He quietly skirted around the reporters, ensuring he avoided eye contact, and used one of the side entrances to get inside the offices. No wonder I couldn’t park, Felix thought to himself, whilst walking upstairs.

  He walked into the main council office, and stopped dead in his tracks. There was paperwork spread over every desk and all over the floor. The only phones which weren’t ringing were those which already had somebody speaking on them, attempting, from what Felix could understand, to justify the council’s decision to redevelop the market square. Everywhere he looked, young people tried to get the council’s computers back online. He glanced over at one of his colleagues for an explanation.

  “Our website’s gone down due to the number of angry e-mails posted on it by the general public. Not only that. We’ve been receiving letters by the truckload, most telling us it’s the council who should be demolished not the wool shop. You’ve received your first death threat by the way,” his colleague added.

  “What?” Felix said.

  “We all have. It was a round-robin death threat. Everyone on the council got one. That’s not the half of it. The Guinness Book Of Records have declared the wool shop the oldest trading wool shop in Britain, and the longest, uninterrupted family-run business. They’ve also declared the Bailey sisters the UK’s longest-serving retailers.” His colleague doodled on a notepad as he spoke. “English Heritage have kindly telephoned to inform us that it has been drawn to their attention that the wool shop may be considerably older than previously believed, so now they want to carry out investigations at the property to find out how old it really is. If only one brick turns out to be mediaeval, they’ll be making a formal application for the wool shop to be listed. Ever wish you hadn’t started something?” his colleague quipped, looking up from his doodle.

  Felix opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He wasn’t sure he had anything constructive to say.

  “Bet that tour of the States of theirs will be splashed all over the front pages,” his colleague said to him, pointing a pen in his direction. “Rub our noses in it, why don’t they? You wouldn’t have thought a schoolboy’s project could’ve opened up such a Pandora’s box would you?”

  Felix, who had always known when to retreat, figured now was as good a time as any.

  “I’m not sure I’m going to be much use here. I’m going to my golf club,” he muttered, hurrying out of the door. He paused to look out of the window. The press were still gathered at the front of the building – he’d use the back door.

  II

  Felix spent the rest of the afternoon at his club. A golf tournament showing at the clubhouse helped put all thoughts of wool shops and cause célèbres firmly out of his mind, and by the end of it, with his mood uplifted somewhat, he drove home.

  His mood darkened again the moment he found a car he didn’t recognise parked in his drive. He reached his front door just as it swung open, and an unknown woman stepped through it. He couldn’t help noticing that she wore a camera around her neck.

  “Perfect timing,” Mirabella said, also stepping through the front door. “This is my husband,” she informed the woman. Without warning the camera was pointed at Felix and his photograph taken.

  “Would you like one of the two of us together?” Mirabella asked her.

  “Please,” the woman replied.

  Before Felix was able to ask what was going on, Mirabella threw her arm around him and their photograph was taken.

  “Thanks once again, Rector,” the still unknown woman said to Mirabella. With a wave of her hand she was inside her car and gone, without having addressed a single word to Felix.

  “You’ll never guess who that was?” Mirabella asked from indoors.

  “If this has anything to do with that confounded wool shop, or those three old ladies, then I really don’t want to know.”

  “Okay then,” she said nonchalantly, disappearing down the hallway towards the kitchen.

  Felix reluctantly followed her. “Okay, tell me,” he said irritably, knowing he was going to have to find out sooner or later.

  “She was a journalist from one of the Dailies. She telephoned the rectory earlier, wanting to speak to you, but when I explained I was part of the campaign to keep the shop open, she suddenly seemed more interested in me than you, and came straight round to interview me.”

  Felix couldn’t believe his ears. It was as though he was suddenly living in the twilight zone. He’d already received his first death threat, and now his face was going to be plastered all over the newspapers. He was a sitting duck. He wouldn’t be able to leave his own house. In stunned silence, he watched his wife busy herself in the kitchen, chatting casually. “They said us being on different sides, so to speak, gave the story an even more interesting twist. It’s lucky you arrived when you did,” she said.

  “For whom?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Long Arm of the Law

  From the minute she’d sat in her parked car outside the Sheffield home of Peter Wilson, Jane had known this was a case which would end with her going to a police station. Whilst she genuinely believed she owed her clients a duty to protect their privacy, she couldn’t allow Peter Wilson to continue abusing the trust placed in him by the people around him, including his own children. She was only too aware that if the case came to court, she would have to look into the eyes, not only of his wives, but of his heartbroken children, knowing that she was the one who’d brought matters to the fore, and that without her interference the people in that courtroom could possibly have spent the whole of their lives happily unaware of the treachery of the man they all loved. This thought was not something which lay easily with her. However she was a sensible woman and a serious crime had been committed, which it was her duty to report, and report it she would.

  Minutes later, she walked into the police station and over to the duty sergeant at the reception desk.

  “I’ve come to report a crime,” she said wearily. “The crime of bigamy. Just to make things clear – I’m reporting it, not confessing to it.”

  After providing the duty sergeant with her details, Jane waited in one of the station’s interview rooms. With chairs more comfortable than one might expect of a police interview room, and a photograph of an Italian hillside town hanging on the wall, Jane assumed the room was reserved for interviews with the general public.

  The two officers assigned to take her evidence joined her there, taking seats on the other side of the desk. The older, and more senior of the two officers, Inspector Boyd, asked if she had any objection to the interview being recorded. She said she hadn’t, and with the digital recorder switched on, Jane started to impart everything she knew about Peter Wilson to the officers. Thinking it best she began at the beginning, she explained she was a private detective to whom Orla Wilson had written. Neither Inspector Boyd, nor his assistant P.C. McKenzie, made any comment. She then produced the letter she’d received in the post from Orla and told them of their first, and to date only, face-to-face meeting.

  “I met her for the first time at her Sunday school, where she told me she wanted me to follow her husband. I found her explanation for his absences rather incredible at the time.”

  Jane told the police everything. She passed those photographs she had over to them and also provided them with the relevant addresses in London, Sheffield and Manchester, together with the telephone numbers of both Winifred Wilson and Orla Wilson. She finished by telling the officers of her last conversation with Orla, including Orla’s claim that her husband was with her when Jane knew he’d been in Manchester.

  “She probably made it up to stop you coming here,” McKenzie said.

  “Initially I thought so too, but she was so adamant, insisting she could prove it that I gave the matter more thought. That’s when I
realised we could both be correct in what we saw,” she explained. “Three old ladies provided me with the explanation.” She told the officers the story of the day the Bailey sisters’ coal was stolen by an Arthur Carter when plenty of witnesses swore he was elsewhere at the time of the crime and their explanation for it. “I left Peter Wilson at the apartment block in Manchester,” Jane said, “I don’t know how long he remained there for. It was still only mid-morning when I left. If he’d only stayed for a short time, made his excuses and left – something he clearly has a knack for – he could easily have driven from there to the airport, left his car there, and caught a local flight home. It’s only a thirty minute flight. Without luggage, he only needs to be there an hour before. A taxi home and a story about where his car was, and poor Orla would be none the wiser. I checked the airport timetable. If he got the timing right, he could do it, door to door, in a little under two hours. He could even return to Manchester later the same day, or more likely, early the next morning, maybe even with Orla still asleep, and resume his double life – keeping all the ladies in his life happy. I’m sure your investigations will confirm my theory.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Mrs Hetherington,” Inspector Boyd said. “Looks like he won’t be spending Christmas with any of his families!”

  “Don’t look much, does he?” P.C. McKenzie said, staring at the photograph of Peter Wilson.

  “It’s often the way,” Inspector Boyd replied. “So you’re a private detective then?” he asked Jane. She nodded. “This your first bigamist, is it?”

  “It is, but then I haven’t been a private detective for very long.” Jane explained. “Not yours, I presume?”

  “Na,” he said with a shake of his head. “Beats me why they do it. Seems a lot of aggro and expense to me. They usually confess immediately, bigamists, I find, when they know the game’s well and truly up.”

  “Should he confess, I presume I will not have to give evidence in court?”