by Wonny Lea
Miss Forrester’s house had a decent-sized, paved front garden, with a short path to the front door and another path presumably leading to a side or back entrance.
Even before Martin had turned off his engine the front door opened and a short, small-framed woman stood at the door leaning with most of her inconsiderable weight on a metal stick that had been adapted to allow her arm to rest above it.
As they moved closer to her Martin had a bizarre thought. If she hadn’t been standing before them she could easily have been the body they had found in Coopers Field. The height was right, the build was right, he could see she wore dentures, and she lived on her own so probably would not be missed for some time. Just as well that the woman who was inviting them into her home was not a mind-reader.
Behind the front door was a large hall with a wide staircase to which was attached a stairlift. The hallway was a beautiful open space and it gave Martin some pleasure to see that the floor and ceiling had not been stripped of the original tiles and mouldings. It looked as if, until fairly recently, the place had been well looked after, but was now in danger of being neglected.
‘Good morning, my dear,’ Miss Forrester ignored Martin and spoke directly to Helen. ‘It’s lovely to see you again – and this time you’ve brought someone with you, quite a handsome chap isn’t he?’
Helen smiled warmly but refrained from answering the question directly. ‘Good morning, Miss Forrester. This is Detective Chief Inspector Phelps and we just want to go through a few things with you. We shouldn’t take up too much of your time.’
‘Time is something I have plenty of,’ came the reply. ‘Unless my maker has other ideas.’
Acting according to protocol, Martin had shown Miss Forrester his warrant card and was not surprised at her response. ‘You could be showing me one of those tacky Tesco clubcards for all I can see,’ she laughed. ‘Why do they insist on pretending they’re giving things to their customers? They should just make things cheaper in the first place – don’t you think so, Inspector?’
Martin could see instantly why Helen had warned him that this visit could take some time and realised that keeping Miss Forrester on track was going to take some effort. Still, this was the start of the visit, and maybe she needed time to get used to their presence so a bit of initial chit-chat was inevitable.
His concern for the probable lengthy timescale deepened as she slowly led them to a spacious sitting room and Martin could see that she had set up a small side table with china teacups, matching milk jug and sugar basin, and a large plate of assorted chocolate biscuits. She was settling them in for the rest of the morning, and he resigned himself to the fact, thinking that she probably had few visitors, and was treating their visit as more of a social occasion than it actually was.
Realising that with her limited mobility Miss Forrester would take an age to actually make the tea, Martin raised an eyebrow towards Helen who quickly caught on and suggested to Elsie that she should sit down and start talking to DCI Phelps and let her make the tea. ‘You won’t know where everything is,’ was the reply. Helen responded
‘I’m practicing at being a detective, Miss Forrester, so just point me in the direction of the kitchen and then you can tell me if I measure up.’
The only thing in the kitchen that threw Helen was the absence of tea bags and the presence of a tin of loose tea and a teapot. It was the first time she had ever made tea in this way but she remembered something her grandmother said. It was something like ‘a spoon each and one for the pot … but first make sure the pot is hot’.
Interpreting that as best she could, Helen put some boiling water into the teapot, swished it around, and poured in away, hoping that those actions sufficed for the pot-warming bit. Then, using the rather ornate spoon that seemed to live in the tea caddy, she put four measured spoons of tea leaves into the pot and filled it almost to the top with freshly boiled water.
She remembered that everything else was on the table in the lounge and so she carried the teapot through to where DCI Phelps and Miss Forrester were deep in conversation, albeit largely one-sided, with Miss Forrester claiming most of the territory.
As Helen put the teapot down on the stand that had been set aside for it, Miss Forrester briefly looked in her direction and suggested that the tea should not be poured for a couple of minutes, because real tea took that time to infuse. ‘It’s not like the instant taste of nothing you get from those teabags,’ she had added.
Without pausing for breath, Elsie Forrester turned back to DCI Phelps and completed the sentence she herself had interrupted ‘… but he was a gambler.’
Martin managed to get a word in edgeways, and he had to do so because Elsie’s mind was jumping all over the place and he was getting no real sense of whether she was talking about recent events or things that had happened decades ago. One thing he knew for sure: this was going to be a long session. But as he was feeling totally at ease with the world this morning, he decided to resign himself to sitting back and listening.
‘Tell me about your sister,’ he suggested. ‘Did she live here with you or was she just visiting from her home in France?’
‘I’ll start at the beginning. Well, not right at the beginning because I’m sure you don’t want to hear about our childhood, although there are lots of stories … no of course you don’t. I think when Daphne got married would be the best place to start.
‘She married a merchant banker who made a very good living in the City, but as well as that he inherited a farm that was sold as a going concern. It included some additional land that was snapped up by property developers and I remember my sister saying they had paid a fortune for it.
‘The only thing wrong with their lives at that time was that they both wanted a family, but my sister was having a really bad time and her first pregnancy ended with the child, a boy, being stillborn. In spite of the best medical care money could buy her second pregnancy was brought to an abrupt end when obstetricians were forced to perform an early Caesarean section. The child, another boy, was very premature and died within hours of his emergency birth.
‘It was several years before Daphne told me she was pregnant again and this time she was kept wrapped in cotton wool and a planned operation at just 33 weeks into the pregnancy produced a small, premature baby girl – but she was healthy and she survived.’
Helen used this positive moment to hand around the tea, and was rewarded with praise from Miss Forrester and a puzzled look from Martin who couldn’t remember when he had last held such a delicate china cup – if ever!
Elsie continued. ‘From the moment Charlotte entered the world, she seemed to know instinctively that this couple who had become her parents were going to give her everything she asked for – and ask she did. Their home at that time was a beautiful house on the edge of Blackheath Common, that’s South London, you know, and I was living in a two-bedroomed house in Rhoose, not far from the Cardiff Airport.’
‘Initially that was quite convenient because my sister and her family were able to come to Cardiff quite regularly, but it wasn’t long before Daphne was in constant pain with her osteoarthritis and it became harder for her to travel. Also, her ladyship Charlotte wanted her own room when she came to stay and so they decided to buy a house in Cardiff. It would be an investment even if only used now and then. The upshot was that they bought this house and then suggested that I move here rather than have the place empty most of the time. I was reluctant to sell my home, but there was no mortgage here and they were paying all the bills so I would have been stupid to refuse.’
‘They were besotted with Charlotte and I am sorry to say that my niece returned their unconditional love by developing a lust for money and possessions. She wasn’t a brilliant student, but had inherited some of her father’s genes and when she was eighteen she scraped a place at the London School of Economics, and in fact did quite well.’
‘In her final year at the LSE Charlotte met a Frenchman, Frederick Lefevre, and they marri
ed two years later. Fortune seemed to be staying with Charlotte as the Lefevre family were financiers and, when he was at the height of his success, and with some help from Charlotte’s parents, the couple bought a truly magnificent house in a fashionable suburb of Nantes. I’ve only been there once with my sister, but I remember the size of the garden – and would you believe they even have a live-in maid?’
Martin added a quick comment that he didn’t know anyone with a live-in maid, inwardly wishing it wouldn’t be too long before the family history got to at least the twenty-first century.
With the faint hope of moving it in that direction he asked if they still lived there, and was that where her sister had been living before she went to the French nursing home.
‘Yes, they are still there,’ was the reply. ‘However, we’ve skipped an important bit regarding why my sister went to live in France.’
Out of the corner of his eye Martin saw Helen lift her hand to her face to hide a grin, and he guessed she was thinking along the lines of ‘Nice try, guv!’ Not noticing the body language of her visitors, Elsie continued unabated. ‘When I retired aged sixty my sister and her husband William handed over the deeds of this house to me. There was no mortgage and money was no object to them. They had their large London property as well as a substantial investment portfolio, but I understand it was one of the few things that they argued with Charlotte about – she clearly didn’t want me to benefit by getting something that she would have expected, in the fullness of time, to be hers.’
‘Disaster struck about fifteen years ago when William was involved in a head-on collision with a lorry, and he died within hours of the accident. Charlotte asked her mother to go to France and live with her and her husband, but Daphne knew it was a hollow invitation and in any event she hadn’t taken to Frederick Lefevre.’
‘She asked me how I would feel if she sold up in London and came to stay with me here and I told her I would be delighted. This house is large, and after they had given it to me they no longer paid the bills, council tax, and water rates. Just those outgoings put together with general upkeep and repairs had been more than my minimum state pension, and I had soon used up my little nest egg.’
‘Having Daphne here was a lifesaver for me, and the time we spent together in this house was one of the happiest periods of my life. In all that time Charlotte and her husband only came here to visit Daphne on three occasions and I particularly remember one of those times – it was about three years ago. My sister was very distressed when they left and I eventually got it out of her that the couple were having business problems and needed money. I was surprised at that, and even more surprised, in fact amazed, when I learned that the sum they needed was in excess of £250,000 – more than a quarter of a million pounds, can you believe that?’
Martin’s eyes widened. ‘It’s a lot of money. Did your sister have that much to give them?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes, that much and more, and she wasn’t upset about giving her daughter the money because, as she said, we didn’t need it and it would in time go to Charlotte anyway. Her concern was that she didn’t quite believe the story of business problems. She knew a lot more about business affairs than me and said that some of the things the couple had told her didn’t ring true.’
‘Anyway with Daphne promising to make a cash transfer the following day they went back to France, and we didn’t see them and barely heard from them for almost a year. So that takes us back to two years ago when things started to go badly wrong and within a period of two weeks we had three visits – twice with the two of them arriving unannounced on the doorstep and once when Charlotte came on her own. After each visit there was an electronic transfer of money from Daphne’s account and I don’t really know how much went altogether.’
‘The visit from Charlotte on her own was different and although money was part of the reason for her visit she was also here to persuade her mother to live with them in France. I think my sister was flattered by the fact that her daughter needed her and so she was persuaded to go. I must say, even at the time, I thought the only thing that Charlotte needed from her mother was her money – and I was right.’
Elsie got up from her chair with some difficulty and walked around in a small circle before sitting down again. ‘It’s OK,’ she said to Martin, who had held out his hand to offer her some assistance. ‘It’s just that I get stiff – but not to worry, I’m almost finished.’
‘For the first couple of months my sister was in France she kept in touch and at least once a week we spoke on the phone. She was able to tell me what was really happening and as I think I said earlier, the problem was gambling. Apparently Frederick was addicted to just about any form of gambling – from cards to horse racing to roulette and other things I had never heard of, and most of the time he wasn’t much good at it.’
‘Over the years their house, which had originally been bought outright, had been mortgaged and re-mortgaged and was now at the limit of its equity value, with defaults on payments making it in danger of being repossessed.’
‘Still he gambled, and Daphne told me that her own savings were slowly dwindling, although her investment portfolio remained intact and provided a good income. After a couple of months my sister told me that she was not well, and that was the last phone call I got from her while she lived with Charlotte. When I rang, I was always told she was lying down and was generally unwell. My own interpretation of the situation is that they used the deterioration in her health as an excuse to ship her off to a nursing home, but only after getting control of her finances.
‘I rang the French nursing home regularly but I don’t speak the language and no one there would spare the time to even try and understand what I was saying, even though I now know that some of them had a fair grasp of English. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I made up my mind to go there personally and see the situation for myself.’
Martin stared hard at her, taking in her frail figure and could see that almost any movement caused pain. ‘You went to see your sister in France – on your own?’ he questioned, finding it hard to believe possible.
The cheeky twinkle that came to Elsie’s eyes answered Martin’s question even before the words came out of her mouth. ‘Yes, Chief Inspector. I got my neighbour to help me with the travel arrangements. and armed with extra pain killers I went by taxi, train, and ferry. It took eighteen hours to get there, but it was worth every minute just to see my sister.’
Martin’s opinion of Miss Forrester went up several notches, and he asked her how she had managed with the language. She told him that Mrs Evans, next door, had insisted on writing telephone numbers and addresses on pieces of cardboard for her, and also a list of useful French phrases with their English translation. ‘Not that Mrs Evans speaks French, but she found a translation site on her son’s computer and we had fun doing it, you just …’
Martin stopped her going into a lengthy explanation. ‘Yes, I’ve used the translation sites myself – but I still can’t get over you going off on your own like that.’
Helen shook her head and added. ‘Me neither, I don’t know any French and would be nervous about making myself understood.’
‘Where there’s a will there’s a way, my dear, and I was determined not to be fobbed off any more: I had to see Daphne. I was shocked when I did see her, because she had no life in her eyes, and she was just lying on a single bed in a drab room, seemingly counting out the last days of her life. My reward for taking such an arduous and painful journey was the smile that transformed her face when she saw me.
‘We talked for about an hour before an officious buxom woman ushered me out, but not before Daphne and I had hatched a plan and I left her with some hope. Needless to say I was shattered when I got back but after a few days recovering I set about putting our plans into action. Did you know that anyone can hire a private ambulance? It’s not cheap but it’s an excellent service.’
Miss Forrester went on to relate how, with the help of her neighbou
r’s computer, she had found a company that was prepared to go to France and bring Daphne back to her home in Cardiff. ‘They told me it would need two of their trained staff to facilitate the transfer, and of course that sent the cost up, but Daphne had already told me not to worry about that.’
‘What about her passport?’ Helen asked. ‘Did she have it? And what about medical consent for the transfer, was that needed?’
‘I had already checked the passport situation with my sister when we were scheming, and she told me that her leather clutch bag given to her by William was never out of her sight and contained her passport, her birth certificate and her most treasured possession – their marriage certificate. I discussed the need for consent for her transfer with the private ambulance company and they assured me that my sister, as a voluntary resident, was not under medical supervision, and provided she consented to the transfer there would be no problem – and there wasn’t.
‘It all went like clockwork and they got back here on Friday 1st July, and Daphne told me then that nothing on God’s earth would ever make her leave this house again. We were about to telephone Charlotte to tell her about the move when she phoned us and at the end of a very acrimonious conversation my sister made it clear to her daughter that she had no intention of ever going back to France.’
Elsie told Martin that in just a few days her sister’s health improved, and she was able to get out of bed and potter around the house, even help with the cooking. ‘She told me many times that she wasn’t sure which she had hated the most, being at her daughter’s house or confined to the nursing home. So you see, don’t you Inspector? When she had disappeared I could not bring myself to believe she had gone of her own free will, and that’s when I reported her missing.’
‘Yes,’ replied Martin. ‘From what you tell me I can understand perfectly that you were concerned. You don’t need to tell me about the circumstances surrounding your report because all of that has been carefully documented by PC Cook-Watts, but with your permission I would like to see your sister’s room before we go.’