by K. J. Frost
“What are you doing today?” I ask her to distract myself from the thought of her nakedness beneath her simple robe, as I gulp down my tea, and then wish I hadn’t said that. I don’t feel as though I have the right to interfere in what she does now, not having been so tyrannical about the way she passed her time yesterday.
“Once I’ve got dressed, I’m going to see your mother,” she replies, seemingly unaware of my discomfort as she concentrates on spreading a thin layer of butter across her toast.
“You are?”
“Yes.” She looks up at me now, smiling. “Don’t you remember? I told you, I’m making a stew tonight. Your mother said she’d tell me how to make it, so I telephoned her yesterday and arranged to pop down there this morning, before I go to the butcher’s.”
“That all sounds very organised.”
“Tell me that when I’ve made the stew,” she remarks.
I sit and watch her, wondering to myself whether she told my mother of her plan to dig the garden yesterday, and whether she’ll reveal my reaction when I got home. I hope she doesn’t, although I wouldn’t blame her if she did. I would completely understand her need to talk to someone about what happened, and I suppose my mother is the obvious choice, given that – apart from Amelie – there isn’t a soul alive who knows me better. But the thing is, I know my mother quite well too, and that means I know that, if Amelie does tell her what I did last night, and the way I behaved towards her, my mother will make my life a living hell. I’m already in purgatory as it is, re-living my mistakes. I don’t need my mother’s criticism, no matter how well-deserved it might be. Even so, I’m not going to ask Amelie to keep things to herself. If she wants to talk to my mother, then so be it… I’ll deal with the consequences. They’ll be well deserved, after all.
“You need to eat up,” she says, eyeing my half eaten toast. “You’ve only got a few minutes until you have to leave.”
She’s quite right, although I wish I could stay, and I wolf down the last of my breakfast, swallowing my lukewarm tea between mouthfuls.
Amelie comes to the door with me, and I kiss her on the threshold, holding her close to me.
“Have a good day,” she says. “And I’ll endeavour to make you an edible stew for your dinner tonight.”
“I don’t care whether it’s edible or not,” I reply, “just promise you love me.”
She doesn’t answer me, but leans up and kisses me quickly on the lips. “There. No, off you go, or you’ll be late.”
It’s only as I’m driving into Kingston that it dawns on me that, since we got out of the bath, she’s been very matter-of-fact, very efficient, and perhaps less romantic than the last couple of days; there was no suggestion of sitting on my lap over breakfast, even though she was barely dressed. There were no comments about going back to bed. And then I realise that she didn’t say she loved me when I asked her, and for some reason, that really bothers me.
In the main office, Wells and Adams are talking to Thompson, but I don’t feel like joining them. I don’t feel like talking to anyone at the moment, and I go straight into my office, hanging up my coat and hat and sitting down in my chair, my elbows resting on the desk, my head on my upturned hands. When I last sat here, yesterday afternoon, everything seemed right and perfect, and now I feel as though I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
“Is everything all right, Rufus?” Thompson comes into my room, but keeps his voice low and quiet, even though only Adams and Wells, and two other men are present in the outer office.
“Yes, everything’s fine,” I reply. I know I could tell him what happened. I know he’d listen and probably have some sound advice, but there’s only one person I want to talk to at the moment, and she’s not here. “What’s going on?” I nod toward the outer office, in the hope he’ll get the message.
He stares at me for a moment and I know he’s not convinced, but he understands me well enough not to push and comes over, sitting in front of me. “Wells and Adams spent most of yesterday afternoon with Clifford Lacey,” he says, still looking concerned, but focusing on the business side of our relationship, not the personal one.
“Who’s Clifford Lacey?” I ask, sitting forward and taking a breath, trying to concentrate.
“He’s the church warden at St. Nicholas’,” he replies. “Wells and Adams called round at his house, which is in Church Lane, and explained that they needed him to identify some names from Mildred Ryder’s diaries. They didn’t go into any more detail than that, even though Mr Lacey was quite inquisitive, evidently.”
“I’m sure he was,” I muse. “And was he able to help?”
“Yes, he was. He provided surnames for most of the entries, and explained that almost all of them were in the choir, or church congregation. He pointed out that the vicar’s name was in there, which none of us had noticed, and there were a few that caused confusion… you know, common names, like Andrew, or David, where Mr Lacey said he couldn’t be completely sure who the person was, but we’ve got about fifteen, I think, who have been positively identified.”
“That’s good,” I remark, without much enthusiasm. “Now I suppose we just need to find their addresses?”
“Yes.” Thompson nods his head. “Mr Lacey knew some of them, and tried to guess at others, which wasn’t very useful.”
“No. I think it’s best if we double check all the addresses before we go knocking on the wrong doors.”
“I agree,” he says, glumly.
“You can leave Adams and Wells doing that, can’t you?” I suggest.
“Of course. Why? Are we going somewhere?”
“Yes. We’re going to the Conroy house. Remember? I want to try our little experiment.”
“Oh yes,” he says. “I’ll go and speak to Wells, while you put your coat back on.”
I glance up to see him looking at me, still with a concerned expression on his face, but he doesn’t say any more and simply leaves the room, while I get up and slowly go back over to the door, shrugging on my coat and taking my hat in my hand, before following him out.
Our journey to Thames Ditton has been silent, which I think is because Thompson isn’t sure what to say to me, and in a way, I wish he had, because all I’ve done is think… and that hasn’t proved to be very helpful at all, since all I can think about is Amelie, and our morning, and why it felt so different to every other morning so far. I’ll admit that we’ve only shared a few mornings together since becoming husband and wife, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t developed a few little habits and routines, all of which I thoroughly enjoy, but which today didn’t seem to be there.
“We’re here,” Thompson announces, and I glance out of the window to find he’s already parked the car outside the Conroy property.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asks again.
“Positive,” I say and get out of the car.
He follows, even though I can tell he doesn’t believe me in the slightest, and comes around to my side of the car, joining me on the pavement.
“As the senior officer – and ex-smoker,” he says quietly, “I suppose you’re going to be the one who stands here timing things, while I do the running around?”
“Well, walking to start with,” I point out. “We have to allow for the fact that the murderer could have been a woman… in this instance, probably Mrs Wharton, and that she was almost certainly wearing high heels.”
“You want me to pretend to be wearing high heels?” he jokes, but I’ve lost my sense of humour today.
“No. Just walk at a reasonable pace. Don’t run. When you get to the site of the murder, allow yourself a minute to perform the stabbing, and then walk back.”
He nods his head and after I’ve checked my watch, he sets off, while I stand outside the Conroy’s gate and imagine myself lighting and smoking a cigarette – a pastime which I only gave up a couple of months ago.
As I pace up and down, I’m aware of someone watching, and tu
rn to see Mrs Conroy standing at the living room window. She moves away the moment our eyes make contact, but I know she saw me.
“Well?” Thompson says, walking back up to me a few minutes later, and I glance back down at my watch again.
“A few seconds shy of five minutes,” I reply.
“Okay. What next?”
“Now, try it running… not at full pelt, because the murderer would probably realise that running too fast would attract attention, but just run at a gentle pace.”
“You’re too kind,” he jests, and sets off again, this time much more quickly than before.
While he’s gone, I keep half an eye on the Conroy property, although the lady of the house doesn’t return to the living room window at all, and Thompson comes back in three minutes and forty-five seconds.
“It’s do-able, isn’t it?” he says, barely needing to catch his breath.
“Very,” I reply.
“So either of the Whartons could have murdered Mildred during one of their solitary cigarette breaks and not been missed from the party.”
“Yes, it looks that way,” I muse. “That would mean it would have been one of them that she’d arranged to meet after choir practice, because they wouldn’t have had the time to wait around for her.”
“No,” he says. “But that’s perfectly feasible, especially if the man who’d raped her was Wharton.”
“Yes. He’d have wanted to keep that quiet and might well have agreed to a clandestine meeting in the churchyard, rather than risk seeing her at his own house, and have his wife overhearing anything untoward.”
“The same thing applies to Mrs Wharton,” Thompson remarks. “If he’d raped Mildred and she’d found out about it.”
I let out a sigh, the web of confusion becoming more tangled with every discovery.
“I don’t—”
“Shh,” Thompson interrupts and nods towards the Conroy house, and I turn and see Mrs Conroy walking down the path towards us.
“What’s going on?” she says, her arms folded across her chest.
“Nothing,” I reply.
She tilts her head, and looks at me with a condescending air. “We both know that’s not true, Inspector. You’ve been wandering up and down for the last ten or fifteen minutes, and your sergeant has been dashing backwards and forwards. So something’s going on.”
“It’s just a procedural matter,” I say dismissively.
She stares at me, and I stare back, and eventually she backs down, unfolding her arms and leaning on the garden gate. “How’s the investigation going?” she asks.
“It’s progressing,” I lie, because at the moment, I really don’t feel as though it is.
“I telephoned Norman yesterday morning,” she says quite boldly. “At his office, obviously. But his secretary told me he was busy, which was a pity.” I know what he was busy with as well… or rather who, and I wonder for a moment how Susan Conroy would feel about Norman’s flirtation with Ethel.
“You could have tried him at home in the evening, couldn’t you?” I suggest, simply because I’m intrigued by what response I’ll get.
“Good Lord, no,” she replies, giving me a disapproving glance before she looks down at the pavement between us. “Lucy might have answered.”
“Well, I imagine she might, considering it’s her house,” I point out.
“Yes, but she always makes things so awkward,” she says, with a slightly whining tone to her voice.
“Oh?” I don’t say any more, because I have a feeling Susan Conroy is bursting to reveal her story to me anyway, without any prompting on my part.
“Yes,” she says, smiling up at me. “You see, before his marriage, Norman and I had a thing together.”
“A ‘thing’?” I query, acting ignorant.
“An affair,” she qualifies, but I continue to stare at her, as though I don’t understand. “We were lovers,” she says eventually.
“Oh… I see.”
“Hmm,” she says. “Well, unfortunately Lucy is very tiresome about the whole situation. She’s incredibly jealous and childish, and simply won’t accept that Norman and I have this rather special friendship as a result of what’s gone on in the past.”
“And your husband doesn’t mind your ‘special friendship’?” I ask.
“Laurence understands,” she says, and I wonder to myself whether Laurence gets any choice in the matter. It dawns on me then though that maybe Laurence Conroy doesn’t know. If I remember rightly, Mrs Wharton explained that Mr Conroy was away at university when his future wife and Mr Wharton were seeing each other, so perhaps he remains blissfully ignorant of their involvement… or maybe he does understand and turns a blind eye. Or perhaps he’s less than faithful himself, and can hardly criticise his wife for something he’s doing himself… God, I’m getting cynical…
“Well, we must get on,” I say, quickly touching the brim of my hat in farewell, and climbing into the car before she can say anything to stop us.
Thompson follows me and starts the engine, pulling away from the kerb, before he says, “She’s trouble.”
“Only so as you’d notice,” I reply.
“If you’re asking my opinion – which I know you’re not, but I’m going to tell you anyway – there’s nothing she’d like more than to resume her relationship with Mr Wharton.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Well, now her husband is away on active duty, she might get the opportunity.”
“If she hasn’t already taken it,” he ponders, stopping at the end of the road to wait for a passing lorry. “Wharton doesn’t deserve to be married,” he says, once we’re under way again.
“No, he doesn’t,” I agree, but then fall silent, wondering whether he’s not the only one.
Chapter Ten
I’m really not in the mood for this, but it has to be done…
The monthly parish lunch is a regular feature and most of the time, I look forward to it, because it’s something the WI organises and it’s nice to feel that I’m giving something back to the local community. It’s an event I’ve attended without fail, for the last five years, ever since it’s inception, because not only does it foster a sense of neighbourliness, it also alleviates the boredom of another day spent by myself, and it gets me out of the house for an hour or two. Even so, today, I’d much rather give it a miss. Not that I can, of course, because my absence would be bound to be noticed, being as I’m now on the lunch committee, and the last thing I need is to become the focus of the village gossips.
Today, they’re going to be worse than usual, given that Mildred’s murder is bound to be the main topic of conversation and I have no doubt that the village busy-bodies will have no shortage of ideas as to who’s responsible. I’m sure they’ll have come up with their own ludicrous theories as to why she was murdered, and how, and I know it’s going to take all my self control not to correct them, or point out the obvious errors in their conjectures. Because there will be errors, trust me. And that’s something I suppose I ought to be grateful for… not that I feel particularly grateful for anything at the moment.
I touch up my hair in the mirror, and try not to think about my plan. Well, I don’t actually have a plan at the moment, and that’s the problem… the more I think about it, the harder it gets to work out exactly how I’m going to incriminate my husband in my crime. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I need to, that implicating him is the best solution to all my problems, but finding the best method is proving a lot harder than I thought it would.
Still, I’ll think about that later. For now, I need to paint a smile on my face and go to this luncheon. I’ll keep an ear open to see what the village thinks is going on, to see if there’s anything that might come in useful – although I doubt it – and then I’ll come back here and concentrate on my plan once more.
I pick up my handbag from beside the hall table and let myself out of the front door, finding it hard not to smile to myself as I wonder what the gossips would say if they knew
the truth.
***
“Back to the station?” Thompson asks, when it becomes clear I’m not going to say anything else. Making comparisons between myself and Norman Wharton isn’t helping. And, when all is said and done, while I’m not proud of the way I’ve behaved I don’t think I’m quite in his league.
“No… we need to go and see Mrs Ryder, I’m afraid.”
He turns the car onto the High Street. “You’re not looking forward to this, are you?” he says.
“Hardly,” I reply.
“No…” His voice fades and we continue the drive in silence, pulling up outside Mrs Ryder’s house within five minutes.
“I suppose she might be at work,” I say, climbing from the car, feeling despondent.
“It’s possible. But then we’ll just have to come back, won’t we?” Thompson is sounding as disheartened as I am now, and I’m perfectly well aware that I’m responsible for that. My own mood is being reflected onto him, but I don’t feel as though there’s anything I can do about that.
He knocks on the door and we stand together, staring at the wooden panels, a semi-circular stained glass window above, in a decorative floral pattern, both jumping slightly when the door opens to reveal a red-eyed Mrs Ryder. She’s still an attractive woman, but she seems to have aged considerably in the last couple of days, which isn’t at all surprising.
“Inspector?” she says, her voice faltering.
“Yes, Mrs Ryder.”
“You’ve come about Mildred?”
I nod my head and she steps back, giving us entry to her living room, where I notice a half-drunk cup of tea on the side table, next to the potted plant.
“Can I get you anything?” Mrs Ryder asks, resuming her seat in the chair.
“No, thank you.”
“Please sit,” she offers, and Thompson and I perch awkwardly on the narrow sofa, which wasn’t really made to accommodate two men of our proportions. “I’m supposed to be at work,” Mrs Ryder adds unexpectedly, reaching for her tea and taking a sip, “but I can’t seem to pull myself together.”