by Gwen Moffat
She was thinning spring onions, wearing skimpy shorts and a halter top, no hat and her hair tied back with a frayed blue ribbon. All that exposed skin and lack of self-consciousness made Gemma feel gauche and resentful, at a disadvantage until she remembered why she’d come. ‘What were you doing on Wednesday night?’ she asked.
Jean teased soil out of onion roots and laid the bunch in a trug. ‘I’ve no idea. What makes it important?’
‘The question is being asked.’ Gemma was belligerent but Jean’s face betrayed nothing, not even curiosity.
‘I know the police are here again. Why should they be interested in me?’
‘Because you’d know where Martin was, that’s why!’ As if a dam had been breached Gemma became, if not confiding, at least informative: ‘It’s not personal, they’re intensifying their inquiries; they just brought Dwayne back from Bailrigg. They took him away early on for questioning.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘I didn’t speak to him! No way am I getting involved.’ Jean looked wary. ‘I found his place shut,’ Gemma went on, ‘so I asked those people opposite, in the holiday cottage, and they told me he’d gone away in a police car. While I was with them the cops brought him back, dropped him off and came on to the village. I kept out of sight, watching to see where they’d go. First place they stopped at was ours. What they’re trying to do is break the alibis.’ She grinned. ‘They’ll have a hard job with me. How about you?’
‘You’re talking nonsense.’
‘Oh, come on! All the local guys are suspect. Which is why they’ll come back to you, asking about Martin’s movements on Wednesday night. And evening,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘You should thank me; I’m giving you advance warning.’
‘Gemma.’ It was the admonishing tone of an adult addressing a child. ‘Isa was Walter’s wife. She may have been a bit – wild, and you didn’t have a lot of time for her, but going round spreading stories is going to rebound on Walter. If the police –’
‘Walter’s fine; I’m his alibi. It’s her lovers who are going to have to watch their backs.’
Jean picked up the trug. ‘I’m not listening to this; dramatizing is one thing but if I didn’t know you I’d say you were trying your best to incriminate Walter –’
‘He’s safe.’ Gemma was smug. ‘He’s got me –’
‘Sort yourself out, girl; if she was a – a –’
‘Whore.’
Jean closed her eyes in despair. ‘– and Walter found out, it puts him in the frame. He’s as likely a suspect as any other man.’
‘Actually,’ Gemma said quietly, ‘I’m not so sure now that she had any more men. What were they quarrelling about on Wednesday afternoon?’
‘Who?’
‘Martin and Isa of course. He’s going to have to explain that.’
Jean gripped the trug in both hands, her knuckles white. ‘You told me he was trying to stop her driving. In fact’ – her eyes glittered – ‘he confirmed that himself – to me!’
‘That was what he said but –’
‘And when he left your place he came home and he was working upstairs all the rest of the afternoon. We never went out, nor that evening either. I was here myself all – What is this?’ She realized she’d been driven back on the defensive.
‘They were fighting. Isa was terrified.’
‘You’re making that up!’
‘Why can’t you face it, Jean? You know he’s been having it off with her for months. Everyone knows; the wife’s always the last –’
‘Why, hello!’ Jean’s shrill cry of welcome cut across the tirade and Gemma swung round, glowering. Miss Pink was coming through the garden, smiling, eyes shadowed by her hat brim and dark glasses.
‘Eleanor needs vegetables,’ she announced, beaming at them, ‘and if Gemma hasn’t warned you already, you should know that the CID is going the rounds again.’
Jean tried to speak, coughed and tried again. ‘Why?’
Gemma muttered something sullenly and left, treading circumspectly past Miss Pink with a strangled ‘Hi.’
‘A volatile young lady,’ Miss Pink observed. ‘Why are the police here? Don’t you know? It has to be a new development.’
‘Such as?’ Jean was trying to control her breathing.
Miss Pink didn’t reply directly. ‘There are bound to be fresh leads in an ongoing investigation,’ she burbled. ‘So many questions to be asked, like why had Isa drunk so much whisky when normally she never touched it? Which implies something unusual had happened?’ Without a change of tone she added, ‘What’s the problem with Gemma?’
Jean tried to turn a gasp into a laugh. ‘She’s in shock. As you said: a volatile girl at the best of times but now – first Phoebe, then Isa: it’s brought her close to the edge. I must have a word with Walter, suggest he might send her away on holiday.’
‘A good idea. They get strange notions. Isn’t there a link between poltergeists and adolescent girls? I could never see it myself but certainly they can be very unstable at that age.’ She raised an eyebrow inviting comment.
Jean said sadly, ‘How right you are. She’s maintaining that Isa was no better than a prostitute.’
‘What do you think?’ Miss Pink was politely interested.
‘I think Gemma’s been rather naughty; she was seeing a lot of Dwayne Paxton and although it would be him for the high jump if the police learned about it, she’s running scared, worried about being put into care. She said the police questioned Dwayne and she’s trying to divert attention, implying he was questioned about Isa, not his relationship with an under-age girl. So she’s telling people Isa was a prostitute.’
‘You’re saying she wasn’t?’
‘Of course she wasn’t!’ Miss Pink looked puzzled. Jean said, surprised by the thought: ‘She couldn’t have been! How could she?’ She stared at the older woman. ‘You mean, the car trips? She went to meet men?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘There’s a rumour she was working the transport cafés on the main road: truck drivers. It does make sense when you think about it.’
A stray breeze wandered through the garden ruffling the plumes of asparagus. Jean turned her hot face to it as Rosie Winder appeared at the corner of the house accompanied by the collie. Rosie was in uniform. She smiled at Miss Pink. ‘You get around,’ she observed.
‘I’m living here, temporarily.’
‘Not in Waterhouses Lane.’ The smile was still there.
Miss Pink hesitated only fractionally, summoning up a mental image of the escarpment, wondering where the cover had been. ‘Now why were you watching that place?’
‘We weren’t. A bird watcher saw you and reported a suspicious presence at the scene of a crime. What were you doing there?’
Good manners might have suggested that Jean make herself scarce, but it was her garden and she resumed her thinning of the spring onions.
‘I was working out how it could have been done,’ Miss Pink said.
‘What was your conclusion?’
‘The usual in that kind of situation: put the car in low gear with the engine running and jump clear. Is it in low gear?’ Rosie nodded. They were both watching Jean. ‘He made a mistake,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Another one.’ Jean’s hands were still.
‘What were the others?’ Rosie asked.
‘He didn’t know about the hyoid – and he was a local man, didn’t realize –’
‘How do you make out he was local?’
‘Either that or he had an accomplice to drive the other car. If he was alone he had to walk away and he couldn’t keep to the roads because he might be seen, so he had to take to the fields.’
Jean stood up. ‘While you’re conducting your interview I’ll fill Eleanor’s order. What was it, Miss Pink?’
‘You do that.’ Rosie nodded approval. ‘I’m sorry I interrupted,’ she told Miss Pink. ‘Actually it was Mrs Blamire I came to see.’
It was six o’clock and Miss Pink, seldom at a loose end but gi
ving the impression that she was, drifted down the flowery top lane, binoculars round her neck but having no need of them, her eyes sharp behind the shielding glasses. At the end of his overgrown path Dwayne’s door was closed but he could be round the back in the sun because his Land Rover was parked at the side. Further on, beyond the track leading to Sleylands, Blamire’s old van was outside the Fat Lamb while, in the field opposite, a tractor was stationary with a shovel mounted on the front.
This early in the evening there were few customers in the Lamb: a family outside, Blamire and Jacob Swinburn in the bar. Blamire greeted her casually and then, evidently remembering that they’d met during the search for Phoebe, he smiled. Swinburn merely inclined his head in something more than a nod. Miss Pink asked Honeyman for draught bitter and observed generally that it was a quiet evening.
‘And it can stay that way,’ Blamire said. ‘No more callouts tonight, please God.’ He turned to Swinburn, apparently continuing a conversation: ‘Some of the most dangerous rescues are low down: trees, loose rock – a guy could be killed with a rock coming down on his head, even wearing a helmet.’
‘But you got that shield thing,’ Swinburn said.
‘That’s for the stretcher; there’s no protection for the barrow boy.’
‘What?’ Honeyman interjected. ‘The barrow boy?’
Blamire flicked a glance at him. ‘The guy on the front of the stretcher: the one at the sharp end.’
Swinburn said, ‘They must be hard chaps as bring a casualty down off Scafell and such.’
‘Not really.’ Blamire was dismissive. ‘It’s easier than a little crag – easier and safer. You don’t have this problem of loose rock on Scafell – and trees, and of course you’re working in the open, you can see where you’re going. I’d sooner bring a chap down the face of Scafell than out of one of them gullies above Closewater like we did today.’
‘But Scafell’s hundreds of feet high,’ Swinburn protested. ‘You can see the cliff from Wasdale. It’s sheer.’
‘Five hundred feet, that’s all. That’s nothing compared with alpine cliffs; they can be thousands of feet. But it makes no difference whether you fall a hundred feet or a thousand, you’re just as dead.’
‘My goodness,’ breathed Miss Pink. ‘You’ve been on alpine rescues?’
He smiled. He’d been having some late nights, he was puffy below the eyes but that could be the result of a strenuous rescue. ‘I’m a guide,’ he told her, not unaware of her scrutiny. ‘Guides help out wherever there’s a rescue.’
‘You’re never off duty.’ A careful measure of tribute.
‘Right, but it goes with the territory: noblesse oblige’ – she blinked – ‘someone will bring me down if I fall. And you, ma’am, are you enjoying your holiday?’
‘Oh yes, yes’ – indicating embarrassment. And why had he decided to turn the charm on her? A hidden agenda? ‘Actually,’ she blurted, ‘I’m looking for material for a book.’
‘What kind of book?’
‘A romance,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve had one serialized in a magazine.’
‘Oh.’ He picked up his lager and drank deeply. ‘I write,’ he said, in the kind of tone that implied he did it properly. ‘I write mountaineering books.’
‘Really.’ She was awed. ‘I can’t say I’ve read – do you write under your own name?’
‘The same. When I’ve finished what I’m doing now I’m going to write a novel. It will start in the Lakes and it’ll feature hard climbing. I’m aiming for TV adaptation.’
‘You’re on to a winner; you have inside information, and experience. It’s not been done before?’
‘Not how I’m going to do it.’ He leaned towards her, becoming confidential but brimming with excitement. ‘It’s going to start on Scafell – that’s how it opens, and then we go to the Eiger and so to Monument Valley.’ He nodded smugly at her amazement. ‘You know what I’m talking about?’
‘I’ve seen pictures. That’s an ambitious undertaking.’
He laughed delightedly. ‘What are you drinking? No, I insist. Ralph, let’s have some service here!’ Honeyman was deep in conversation with Swinburn but they drew apart at the shout.
Blamire ordered a round. Swinburn edged up to Miss Pink. ‘I moved them shearlings,’ he told her.
Surfacing from images of Scafell, the Eiger and tall sandstone buttes she said weakly, ‘Moved them, Mr Swinburn?’
‘Buried un.’
‘Deep, I hope,’ Blamire said loudly.
‘Deep enough.’ Swinburn was unfazed.
‘That tip’s going to have to go,’ Blamire said, and Miss Pink thought he sounded as if he were high on something, but perhaps it was no more than strong lager on an empty stomach.
‘It’s not your land yet,’ Swinburn said, and there was something like a warning behind the words.
‘Yes,’ she murmured: an old lady commenting on her own thoughts, ‘I was at your place, Mr Blamire; everyone was there this afternoon.’
Was it imagination or were all three of them suddenly stilled? She cocked her head like a dog.
‘Who?’ Blamire asked quietly.
‘Your wife of course; I went up for vegetables for Jollybeard. And Gemma was there visiting, and Rosie.’
He was staring, as was Swinburn. Honeyman was drawing the beer, making as much noise as a mouse.
‘Rosie Winder,’ Miss Pink said, flustered. ‘The police sergeant. You’ve been away all day.’
He couldn’t walk out although she could tell by his tension that he wanted to, but the round he’d ordered was being assembled, and it had to be paid for, his own drink to be consumed. No one left a full glass on the bar to attract attention.
‘Were they at my place?’ Swinburn asked.
‘The police?’ She tried to remember. ‘They were calling on everyone so I’ve no doubt they went to Sleylands.’
He was grinning. ‘I’ll need to get home. Damage limitation. Good thing I got them sheep underground.’
‘I’m off.’ Blamire gulped down his drink. ‘Gotta get cleaned up. ‘Night all.’
Honeyman and Miss Pink faced each other across the bar. He said, ‘You ever hear that old joke: you send a telegram saying “All is known, fly at once” and anyone, everyone what gets a telegram like that drops everything and scarpers. You know that one?’
‘What did you tell the police?’
‘That you were on the call-out.’
‘What did she ask you?’
‘Who?’
‘That cop bitch: Winder.’
‘Nothing they hadn’t asked before, like where you were on Wednesday night.’
‘And?’
‘There was nothing to add to that. You were here.’
Some of the tension left him. He threw a glance at the passage where sunshine streamed through the open front door. ‘What else did she ask?’
‘There was nothing, Martin, no surprises: did you know Isa, when did you see her last, that kind of thing. I repeated what I’d told them before.’
‘So where’s the point in asking the same questions?’
‘It’s what they do: trying to catch you out.’ Her tone changed. ‘Gemma was here again. She’s working her guts out to divert attention from Walter. Do you think he did it?’
‘Good luck to him if he did.’ He went to the fridge and reached in for a can of Carlsberg. Standing at the sink he looked down through the trees towards the beck. ‘It seems likely,’ he said, considering it carefully: ‘if he found out what she was like.’
‘He doesn’t seem the type to kill.’
He turned and stared at her but she was dribbling oil into the mortar, drop by drop. ‘Miss Pink was here too,’ she added, putting down the oil, taking up the vinegar. ‘She asked an odd question: why did Isa drink Scotch that night?’ She looked up at him.
‘You’re asking me?’ He was astonished. ‘She liked Scotch, I suppose.’
‘Miss Pink said she didn’t.’
‘I’ve b
een talking to the old bat: just now, in the pub. She’s senile.’
‘And prurient. She’s obsessed with Isa’s sex life.’ Jean mixed the vinaigrette. ‘Did you know that there’s a rumour going round that she was working the all-night cafés as a prostitute?’
‘That doesn’t surprise me – although not so much a prostitute, more a nymphomaniac.’
‘What’s the distinction in this case?’
‘It’s a more likely motive for murder. A prostitute’s not interested in sex, only money. But once Isa got her claws into a man … She was rapacious, a chap might kill her just to get her off his back. She was a – what’s the word? An incubus.’ He crushed the empty can, stamped on the pedal of the bin and dropped it in the rubbish, heedless of recycling. Glowering, he fetched another, slamming the fridge door. Jean picked up her chopping knife and started on the coriander.
She didn’t hurry the supper, lingering outside the porch as she swung the salad basket, thinking that she should be feeling more relief now that Isa was dead; if she’d known what was happening she’d have throttled the slut herself. How could the woman dare? And meeting her neighbour every day, smiling, laughing; granted she was always moaning that there was nothing to do in Borascal, but even that must have been an act because she was portraying herself as a gossip when in fact she was so discreet it was criminal.
Jean stopped swinging the basket and stared as a flycatcher pounced and retreated to its perch as if it were on elastic, but she wasn’t seeing the bird, she was seeing Isa: pretty and vacuous, giving off none of the sexual aura one would associate with a nymphomaniac. But since she had never met one, how could she know?
She felt his presence behind her, her hair was lifted and he nuzzled her neck. She sighed and saw that he’d brought her a drink.
‘For the chef,’ he said. ‘Supper smells good, what is it?’
He was begging forgiveness, but if he hadn’t – responded to the bitch, what was there to forgive?
‘Yesterday’s cold duck,’ she said, searching his face over the rim of her glass.
He was smiling: not amused at her but reassuring, all his feeling in his warm eyes. ‘It’s in the past, love.’ He knew exactly what was in her mind. ‘This is us: now. You think I’d have let someone like that come between us?’