by Hazel Holt
I thought of Joan and of how (now I came to think of it) I’d hardly ever seen her alone, hardly ever had a conversation with her except in Sidney’s company. She’d seemed simply shy and not very bright, a mousy little woman with a clever, devoted husband. Had she known about Brian and his mother, was that an extra pain she’d had to bear? How had she kept up appearances for so long? Can fear become a habit? Perhaps one can become accustomed to anything, and, of course, she had had David to protect. And all the time Sidney had basked in his popularity, been accepted as a charming, generous man, a pillar, as they say, of the community.
Suddenly I remembered an incident. It was the day of their Ruby wedding. I had called in at the hotel near Taunton early to drop off a present before the party itself. As I approached the Oak Room where the party was to be held I heard Sidney talking to one of the hotel staff. I couldn’t hear the words, but I gathered that he was complaining about something, complaining very forcefully. I remember being surprised because I’d never heard him use that tone of voice before, but I assumed that the error had been of major proportions and that he had wanted everything to be perfect on this particular day. But now, in my mind’s eye, I saw Joan, sitting by the window of the room. She was crouched forward, her arms clasped about her shoulders, rocking back and forth. I suppose I’d been so surprised at Sidney’s outburst that I’d forgotten that picture of Joan. I backed away and left the hotel and when I arrived at the party I found Sidney in great form, welcoming the guests, making the occasion a great success. Everyone said how marvellous it had been and what a pity it was that Joan was so shy and didn’t exert herself more.
I got up from my chair, wanting to shake off my thoughts, to wipe out the memory. I went out into the kitchen and, as I mechanically started to cut up some food for the animals, it was suddenly borne in upon me that Sidney Middleton had been murdered and that David had had an overwhelming motive for killing him. Not just David, though. Brian, too, had suffered intolerable misery and so, to a lesser degree, had Bill Goddard. I put down the scissors and thought about it. David said that he had no alibi. I wondered about the other two. Somehow I didn’t want to know. Like David and Brian I was glad that the man was dead and I didn’t want Roger to catch whoever was responsible.
Actually I saw Roger the very next day. I’d had to go into the bank to sort out a query on my statement – it’s impossible to deal with these things by phone now – and I was feeling confused, as I always do when I have to deal with figures, so I didn’t see him at first.
“Hello, Sheila,” he said, “you seem miles away!”
“It all comes from not being numerate,” I said, stuffing the statement into my handbag. “Anything to do with figures and a shutter comes down in my mind. It’s very depressing.”
He laughed. “Come and have a coffee and cheer up I’ve got half an hour before I need to get back.”
In a way, feeling as I did about Sidney’s death, I didn’t really want to have a chat with Roger just then and for a while I kept the conversation strictly to family matters.
“How’s Delia?” I asked. “I feel I should be getting all the information I can for when Alice is that age. I’m quite sure it will be quite different from the way it was with Michael.”
“All I can say,” Roger said, wiping the icing sugar from his Belgian bun off his fingers, “is make the most of now. The older they get the more difficult it is! We’ve just had to redecorate her room because it wasn’t cool enough for her to invite her friends round. It’s all mauve now, mauve and silver. Mauve, apparently is the new pink – no, don’t ask! I’m just echoing my daughter.”
I laughed. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
“And as for this mobile phone business. I held out against it for ages, but we had to give in the end. The theory is that at least they can get in touch if they’re in trouble, but, of course, what they really use them for is chatting to their friends. Can you explain it to me? Delia went to a sleep-over (dreadful phrase) with her friend Abbie. From what I can gather they chattered away all night instead of sleeping and then the moment she got home, she was onto the phone to her talking away as if she hadn’t seen her for a month!”
“Oh dear. And what about Alex?”
“Football mad like the rest of them, but I can cope with that. It’s poor Jilly who has to deal with the muddy shirts and boots…” He broke off and then he said, “Sheila, about Sidney Middleton.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been trying to check where people were, the night he died.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound casual, “and what did you find out?”
“Neither Bill Goddard or Brian Thorpe had an alibi. They both said they were at home.”
“Well,” I said, “Brian couldn’t leave his mother and Bill Goddard is an old man with a bad chest infection. Where else would they be?”
He looked at me quizzically. “Where indeed?”
I smiled but didn’t say anything.
“I went to see David Middleton,” Roger said.
“Oh yes?”
“Since he has the strongest motive after all.”
“But he didn’t inherit anything,” I said quickly. “It’s all in trust for the boys.”
“Might that not be a motive?”
“Well, yes, in a way,” I replied, “but surely, by the time the boys were of age, Sidney might very well have died of natural causes.”
“True. But money may not necessarily have been the real motive. I gather he wasn’t on very good terms with his father.”
“It seems that Sidney wasn’t a very nice person,” I said cautiously, “but I believe you know that. I don’t think he treated David very well.”
“I see.”
“Now we know what sort of person Sidney really was,” I went on, “it may be that there were other people who might have had reasons for disliking him.”
“Do you know of anyone else?” Roger asked.
“Well, no,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. After all, the business with Bill Goddard’s brother has only just come to light.”
“That’s true. Keep your ears open and let me know if you hear anything.”
“Yes, of course.”
Roger leaned forward. “Sheila, Sidney Middleton may not, as you say, have been a very nice person, better off dead, perhaps. But the fact remains that he was murdered and whatever we may think about the ins and outs of the affair, taking a life is against the law and it is, in the last resort, wrong. That’s why I have to investigate his death and that is why I need all the information I can get, no matter what it is and who may be hurt by it.” He looked at his watch. “Is that the time? I must be going. Give my love to Thea and Michael. Take care of yourself.”
I sat quite still for a while, taking in the force of Roger’s reproof, since reproof it was, however courteously delivered, and of course, I admitted to myself, he was right. We can’t go taking the law into our own hands however terrible the provocation. It is not for us to balance one life against another, however much we may feel our reasons are right and just.
For the rest of the day I was restless and couldn’t settle properly to anything. I kept thinking about what Roger had said and trying to decide if I should tell him everything I knew about Brian and David. Should I tell him, too, about Bill Goddard’s solitary walks when he could so easily have removed that inspection plate? My conscience said I should but I still felt in my heart that it would be some sort of betrayal.
“How much easier it would have been if Sidney had been as nice as we always thought he was,” I said to Foss as he settled beside me on the sofa while I flicked back and forth between the television channels trying to find something to take my mind off the problem. “Then there would have been no doubt at all about wanting his killer caught. I still can’t believe how easily he deceived us all and for so long.”
Foss, irritated by my restlessness, jumped down from the sofa and made his way into the kitchen, loudly de
manding his supper, closely followed by Tris with a similar object in mind. I put down their saucers and decided I might as well go to bed myself. It really hadn’t been a very satisfactory day and to soothe myself I picked up the copy of Sense and Sensibility that lay on my bedside table and, opening it at random (as one can with well-loved books), I began to read.
‘“I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes,” said Elinor, “in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other…and I can hardly tell why or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.”’
I laid down the book with a smile and thought once again how Jane Austen never fails one. Then I picked it up again and lost myself gratefully in the doings of the family at Barton Cottage.
Chapter Sixteen
* * *
The next day I felt more cheerful. There was a hint of Spring in the air. A patch of snowdrops by the stream had been transformed overnight from anonymous green spikes into delicate bells of white and, as I drove into Taviscombe after lunch, I saw with pleasure that some of the early municipal daffodils were in bloom on the grass verges and traffic islands. After my conversation with Roger I felt a bit guilty that I hadn’t told him everything I knew, so I thought I’d go and visit Bill Goddard and try to decide once and for all whether he might have had anything to do with Sidney Middleton’s death. When I got there, though, no one was in. I rang the bell several times and was just about to give up and go home when a voice behind me said,
“Did you want Bill and Betty? They’ve gone to the doctor’s.” I turned round and saw Myra Norton. “Oh it’s you, Mrs Malory, I’m so sorry I didn’t recognise you from behind. No, like I said, they’ve gone to the doctor’s – just a check-up for Bill – but they won’t be long. Would you like to come in and have a cup of tea with me while you wait?”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but I don’t want to put you to any trouble…”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she said heartily, “Jim’s out and I’ll be glad of the company.”
I followed her up the path and into the bungalow. “That’s really kind of you,” I said. “I just wondered how Bill is – I brought him a few gardening magazines.”
“Oh he’ll like those, he’s a great one for his garden. Not that there’s much you can do at this time of the year, really dismal it’s been. Still, it’s nice and bright today. Do come and sit down in the lounge while I put the kettle on. Now do make yourself at home, I won’t be a minute.”
When she had gone I looked about me. Apart from a fiercely patterned carpet the predominant shade was beige – furniture, curtains, even the cushions. There was a light-wood sideboard and a fitment against one of the walls holding a few books and many small ornaments, and a lot of house plants were standing on a multiplicity of occasional tables. There were no pictures but there were several photographs on the sideboard. One was the Nortons’ wedding photograph – the young Myra Norton, beaming happily in white satin and orange blossom with an enormous bouquet of lilies and Jim Norton, acutely uncomfortable in a tailcoat and striped trousers. Another was of a young girl, about 10 or 11, in school uniform, blazer, white shirt and striped tie, fair-haired with a pleasant though not especially pretty face. The third was of a young man wearing a gown and mortar board, holding some sort of rolled up certificate. He had dark hair and an anxious expression. I was struck by the stiff posed formality of all three photographs and wondered who the two young people were. Then it struck me that they might be the young Jim and Myra Norton – the clothes, after all, were timeless, and it seemed rather touching that they should wish to display only these images of their former selves.
“There we are then.” She was back in the room putting down a tray of tea things on yet another small table. “How do you like it? Weak, strong or just as it comes? Milk and sugar?”
“Strong please, with just a little milk and no sugar.”
To her evident disappointment I declined in turn a chocolate biscuit, a piece of shortbread and a lemon slice but I accepted the tea gratefully.
“That’s lovely,” I said, “just how I like it.”
As I drank my tea I surreptitiously compared the photograph of the girl with the person before me and decided there was a strong possibility that they were indeed one and the same person.
“No, Bill’s made a very good recovery,” she was saying. “Poor soul, he was really very ill, but the doctor made him have a chest X-ray, well, you can’t be too careful, can you, and so they’ve gone in today to get the result. Betty was quite worried, but I said, ‘No, mark my words, it’ll be all right. If there’d been anything wrong they’d have rung you straight away’. Well, they do, don’t they?”
“I’m sure you’re right. He did seem much better when I saw him last and it’s been quite a mild Winter on the whole.”
“Oh yes, we’ve been very lucky and these bungalows are very easy to keep warm. Good insulation, Jim says, and the central heating is wonderful. I have to turn it right down sometimes it’s so warm. Mind you, central heating’s all very well, but I do miss having a fireplace – no mantelpiece to put things on and nothing that you can call a focus to the room.”
“It’s all very cosy,” I said, “and your plants seem to thrive, they’re really splendid.”
“Oh, I’ve always had a knack with houseplants. Jim says I’ve got green fingers. Now he’s a marvel with electrical things. He’s at Brunswick Lodge right now, fixing something or other.”
“He’s been wonderful,” I said. “We’re so grateful to him for all that he does there.”
She laughed. “It’s a blessing really, him having an interest like that. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he didn’t have something to keep him busy. Now, are you sure you won’t have a lemon slice? No? Another cup of tea then?”
“No, really, I won’t thanks. Actually, I think I’d better be going. I’ll call on Bill and Betty some other time.”
“No, don’t do that. They’ll be here in a minute, I’m sure. Betty said they’d be coming straight back. Just between ourselves I think she’s still worried about Bill, not just his chest, but that business with his brother, you know. It upset him terribly, well it would, wouldn’t it? He used to go off on his own, sometimes late at night. I’ve seen him come back in the small hours – I don’t sleep very well, old age I suppose – and I often get up and make myself a hot drink and when I heard the gate go I looked through the window and there he was. It gave me quite a turn seeing him at that time of night.”
“I can see that would be worrying. Poor Betty.”
“Well, we must hope he’s on the mend now, though they do say that any sort of mental problem takes much longer to put right.”
“Oh I don’t think it’s as bad as that.”
“Well perhaps not…” She broke off and went to the window. “That’s them coming back now.”
“Right. I’ll just give them a moment to get in,” I said, “and then I’ll be off. Thank you so much for the tea, it was very kind of you.”
“It’s always nice to have a chat. Do drop in any time.”
Bill and Betty seemed pleased to see me. My arrival was the signal for Betty to put the kettle on, although I protested that I’d just had a cup of tea with Mrs Norton.
“Oh, I’m sure you can manage another one, dear. And, after sitting about in that waiting room so long, I’m absolutely gasping!” she said as she bustled off into the kitchen.
“You know Betty with her cups of tea,” Bill laughed.
“It’s lovely to see you looking like your old self again,” I said. “Obviously that break in Bournemouth did you a lot of good.”
“Oh yes, Susan and Trevor really went out of their way to make us welcome and it was a good chance to see the grandchildren.”
“That was nice.”
“But it wasn’t ju
st that,” Bill said. “Before we went David Middleton came to see me. You can imagine, he was the last person I expected to see. He said he had to come, said he wanted to apologise. I couldn’t think what to make of it – that man’s son! And I never really had much time for young David the few times I met him. But then he explained, he came right out and told me all sorts about his father and the way he and his mother had been treated all those years. I couldn’t hardly believe it!”
“I’m pretty sure it’s true,” I said. “He’s spoken to me about it too and so did – so did someone else, who’s suffered almost as much as David. It’s very obvious that Sidney Middleton was a really horrible man. That awful thing he did in the war seems to have been part and parcel of the same thing. He was just – well, horrible!”
Bill nodded. “I was really impressed with the way young David didn’t try to make any excuses. He said he should have let people know somehow what his father was really like. But then, the things he told me, things I couldn’t repeat, about what he and his mother had to go through – well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“I know. David told me a little about their life together and, like you, I found it dreadfully upsetting.”