‘Oh, Claire. I thought you and Mitch were happy.’
‘We were.’ Claire looked at the door. ‘I can’t go into it now, there isn’t time, but when he goes away again I’ll come up,’ she said quietly. ‘And if it’s a school day, too bad! What the eye doesn’t see…’ Bess put her arms around her younger sister and held her tightly. ‘Don’t Bess, you’ll have me crying.’
‘Just remember, I’m always here,’ Bess said, walking with Claire to the door. ‘We both have telephones, so ring me anytime, day or night.’
In a flurry of hugs and calls of goodbye the family left, leaving Ena behind with Bess.
‘I feel like a drink,’ Bess said.
‘Me too. I’ll put the kettle on.’ Ena said, going into Bess’s office.
‘I mean a real drink,’ Bess called after her. Ena said something that sounded like I was joking and the door closed behind her.
‘How are you coping, Mrs Donnelly?’ Maeve asked, when Bess approached the reception desk.
‘I’m worried to death, Maeve, as you can imagine. But worrying won’t help Frank. Keeping on top of things here will. Later, would you fill me in with what’s been going on; bookings, arrivals and departures?’ Bess stretched. ‘I know I’ve been sitting down for the last couple of hours, but I feel as if I’ve done a night shift. I’m going to put my feet up and have something to dull the anxiety I’m feeling. Oh,’ she said, turning back to Maeve from the office door, ‘if Frank, or Henry telephone--’
‘I’ll put them straight through to your desk extension.’
Bess pressed her lips into a straight line and nodded her thanks. She was too close to tears to speak.
It was two in the morning when Frank got home. He found Bess in a hunched, half-sitting, half-lying position in her chair. ‘You’re freezing, darling. Let’s get you up to bed.’
Bess squinted at him and grimaced. ‘Got a crick in my neck,’ she said, in a voice thick with sleep.
‘It’s no wonder, falling asleep down here in the chair.’ Frank gently massaged his wife’s shoulders.
‘What happened?’ she asked, still not fully awake.
‘I’ll tell you in the morning.’
‘But--’
‘No buts, Bess. For once you are going to do as you’re told.’
There was a knock on the door. Bess turned over and groaned. Frank jumped out of bed, pulled on his trousers and opened it. ‘Maeve?’
‘When I read your note saying you were late getting back last night, and asking for an alarm call at seven, I thought it might be nice for Mrs Donnelly - and for you too of course - if I brought your tea and toast up, instead of putting it in the office.’
‘Room service with a smile,’ Frank joked. ‘Thank you, Maeve.’
‘Thank you, Maeve,’ Bess mumbled into her pillow.
‘I’ll be down shortly,’ Frank said, taking the tray.
‘I’m sure there’s no rush. None of the guests are down yet, the kitchen is in full swing - Mrs Green is looking after things there - and the waitresses are preparing the dining room for breakfast. The post hasn’t come, but the newspapers have. I’ve taken one to the smoking lounge, one to the library, and put one on Mrs Donnelly’s chair in the office.’
‘Thank you, Maeve. Well,’ Frank said, ‘as you have everything under control, I shall stay up here for another ten minutes and have breakfast with my wife. Oh, Maeve?’ Frank said, when the receptionist turned to leave, ‘would you ask Mrs Bramley’s son, Davey, to clean the ashes from the grate in the office. Ask him to lay a fire, will you, but not to light it. We’ll do that later, if we need to.’
‘I’ve already asked him, sir. I noticed the ashes hadn’t been cleared when I took the newspaper in. Young Davey’s a good boy, but he can be forgetful.’ With that Maeve left.
Frank poured the tea, putting Bess’s cup on her bedside table. He drank his while he finished dressing. Bess sat up and yawned. ‘Thank you.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘Now, pass me my dressing gown and come and sit on the bed. I want to know what you meant yesterday when you told Sergeant McGann you had proof that David Sutherland was alive on the second of January.’
‘Because I had a letter from him on that day.’
‘Why would David Sutherland write to you?’ Frank draped his wife’s dressing gown round her shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘Frank?’
‘Because he was blackmailing me.’
‘What?’ Fear, like a hot blade, stabbed at Bess’s heart. ‘I don’t understand. What could David Sutherland possibly know about you that was so bad you needed to pay him to keep quiet?’ Frank put Bess’s cup back on the bedside table, sat on the bed, and took her hands in his. She gasped when the realisation hit her. ‘It wasn’t you he was blackmailing, was it?’
‘No,’ Frank confessed. Bess slumped back against the headboard and closed her eyes. ‘Your name isn’t on the letters, so McGann doesn’t know they’re anything to do with you.’
‘He isn’t stupid, Frank. He knows I knew Sutherland in London. He’ll put two and two together.’
‘He won’t, darling, not now.’ Bess looked questioningly at her husband. He lifted a stray curl of auburn hair from her face and put his finger to her lips. ‘Don’t shout at me.’ Bess rolled her eyes, as if to say what now. ‘I told him that I’d had a brief affair with a woman, a fling, and that Sutherland had found out about it and was threatening to tell you unless I paid him to keep quiet.’
‘Frank what have you done? You’ve lied to the police. If McGann finds out, he’ll put you in prison for perverting the course of justice.’ Bess turned away and, as if every ounce of strength in her body had suddenly left her, fell sideways and cried into her pillow. Frank climbed onto the bed and lay next to her. Still crying, Bess brought up her knees. Frank brought his up too, until they were lying as close as two spoons in a cutlery drawer. With Bess safely in his arms, Frank stayed there until she calmed down.
‘I’m sorry Frank,’ Bess said, when she stopped crying.
‘You have nothing to be sorry for. All that matters is you forgive me.’
‘Forgive you? For what?’
‘For having an affair with an imaginary woman.’
Bess couldn’t help herself and laughed. ‘I might.’ She turned over and looked at her husband. ‘Did McGann keep the letters?’
‘No. He got so cheesed off with me repeating the same story over and over again that he eventually stormed out of the interview room. When he didn’t come back I gathered them up and slipped them into my pocket.’
Frank leant back thoughtfully. ‘You know, I was going to burn them after Sutherland’s body was found. I thought, if the police discovered he was blackmailing me, it would look as if I had a motive for shoving him into the lake. But there was so much going on that week I forgot all about them.’
‘It’s a good job you did. If you’d burned them, you’d have no proof Sutherland was alive in January.’
‘I’m not sure the letters prove that, or that they were written by David Sutherland, because he didn’t sign them. They are only initialled.’
‘Where are the letters now?’
‘Locked away in the safe. And that’s where they are going to stay until this damn enquiry is over. Then I shall take great pleasure in lighting the fire with them.’
‘Frank?’ Bess said. Then she stopped and took a shuddering breath.
Frank laid his head on her shoulder and whispered, ‘What is it?’
‘Did McGann read the letters?’
‘No. He glanced at the first and the last, which he said were so ambiguous they could have been written to anyone, by anyone, about anyone. Then he left the room. He came back brandishing a pocket diary that he said had been found in the lining of a suitcase in Sutherland’s room at Hawksley’s place. Sutherland had written D. and a financial amount on the first day of every month for six months. McGann checked the dates and amounts on the blackmail letters with the entries Sutherland had made in his diary.’
‘Yes, within a day or two, all but the last envelope. The letter I received on January the second didn’t have a stamp on it, so there was no post mark or date. And the fifty pounds I left under the bench in the walled garden was never deposited at Sutherland’s bank.’
‘Surely six out of seven letters with matching deposits are enough to prove your innocence.’
‘The letters only prove Sutherland was blackmailing me, and if the last letter he wrote was on January the second it goes part way to proving he couldn’t have died on New Year’s Eve - when he thinks I had an alibi. McGann made it quite clear that I was still his main suspect.’
Bess looked up at Frank. Her face was red from crying, but her eyes were bright and questioning.
‘What is it, darling?’
Bess swallowed hard and took a deep breath, garnering the strength and willpower she needed to ask Frank the question she had wanted to ask him since he first told her that Sutherland had been blackmailing him. ‘I’d like you to tell me what Sutherland said about me in the letters.’
Frank lowered his gaze and shook his head. ‘Why, Bess? What good will it do?’
‘I need to know Frank. I have to know! What did he say?’
Frank exhaled and thought for a moment. ‘In the first letter he said he knew your dirty secret from your time in London. If you paid him £50 it would go away.’
‘So you paid him?’ Frank nodded. ‘But it didn’t go away?’
‘No. He wrote and threatened to expose you every month, so I paid him every month.’
‘But it was only the first and last letters that you showed McGann?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the others?’
‘They were similar to the first, getting progressively worse. In some he said you loved it, loved him. But don’t worry, McGann didn’t see any of them,’ Frank assured her.
‘You know none of what Sutherland said in those letters is true, don’t you?’
‘Why would you even ask me a question like that, Bess?’ Frank held her in his arms a while longer, and then said, ‘As much as I would love to stay here with you all day, I think I should go down.’
‘Couldn’t we stay in bed for just a little longer?’ Bess whispered. ‘Ena and Maeve are quite capable of looking after things. Besides, I’m ever so tired,’ she teased.
Frank laughed. ‘How about an early night tonight? Catch up on the sleep we missed last night. What about it?’
‘Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse.’ Bess laughed, brought her feet up and kicked Frank off the bed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘What is it, Frank?’
‘No wonder McGann didn’t believe me when I said I hadn’t killed Sutherland.’ Bess walked across to the back of the desk and looked over her husband’s shoulder. ‘Look? This is the first letter; the one I told you about, the one that I showed him - and this is the last letter.’ Frank laid the letter that he had received on January the second on the desk next to the first, flattening it with the palms of his hands. ‘What do you see?’
‘Two letters.’
Frank tutted. ‘That’s not what I meant. Look again.’
Bess screwed up her eyes and looked closer. ‘Sorry, I can’t see anything. Both letters are addressed to D. There isn’t a signature on either of them, but they are both initialled, DS.’
Frank stood up, took Bess by the hand and sat her down in his chair. ‘Now read them both again - every word - and look closely at the writing.’
‘Apart from the fact that the grammar isn’t correct in the last letter, I-- Hang on. Good Lord, his grammar hasn’t only worsened, it’s almost as if he’s written it badly on purpose.’ Bess picked up the first letter and scrutinised it. Then she picked up the last letter. ‘The writing is slightly different too, but the initials…’ Bess looked up at Frank, ‘they really are different when you look closely, aren’t they?’
‘And that is why McGann didn’t believe me when I said Sutherland was alive on January the second. I don’t think he’s bright enough to have noticed the deterioration in Sutherland’s grammar, but you can bet your life he noticed the difference in his initials.’
Bess took a bundle of receipts from the drawer in her desk. ‘Look, I put my initials on receipts when they’ve been paid, before I file them, and mine aren’t identical.’
‘Of course they’re not. Sutherland’s wouldn’t be either, but this is just the thing McGann will be looking for. The man’s desperate to solve this murder before the inspector from London does - and he’s doing his damnedest to pin it on me.’
‘Did Henry say anything to you at the police station?’
‘No, only that he had to go somewhere this morning. Follow up on another line of enquiry... He said he’d call in this afternoon. I’ll show him the discrepancies in the letters as soon as he arrives.’
‘You know what this means Frank?’ Bess looked from the letters to her husband.
‘Yes. Whoever sent this letter on January the second was in on the blackmail. If they weren’t, they were close enough to Sutherland to know he was extorting money from me.’
Bess took a sharp breath and put her hand up to her mouth. ‘Which means they knew Sutherland was already dead.’ Frank’s brow furrowed. He looked questioningly at Bess. ‘Think about it. Why else would they go to the trouble of demanding money, copying Sutherland’s handwriting and forging his initials, if not to make you - and later the police when his body was found - think Sutherland was alive on January the second?’
‘To cover up the fact that they had murdered him on New Year’s Eve.’
Maeve had asked for a few hours off so Ena was on reception. She waved to Jack to take over from her. Maeve had been training the likeable young man to be a receptionist, but until another day-porter could be found, Jack had agreed to work as a porter in the mornings - meeting and greeting guests on arrival, taking their luggage up to their rooms, and bringing down the luggage of those who were leaving. She looked at the clock. If she didn’t go soon Katherine Hawksley might have gone home for the day.
Ena put on her coat as Jack arrived at reception and, after filling him in on who was where, she took the keys to Frank’s Ford Anglia from the desk drawer. Leaving by the back door, she walked out into the sunshine. It felt warm on her face. She crossed the courtyard and, breathing deeply, caught the familiar smell of manure and wrinkled her nose.
As Ena turned onto Mysterton Lane, she saw her husband driving towards her. She stopped and wound down her window. ‘Hello, you,’ she said, when Henry pulled up alongside the old Ford in his new cream coloured Hillman Minx. ‘Where have you been?’
‘The Vicarage in Kirby Marlow, where Maeve O’Leary is lodging. I’ll tell you about it later. Where are you going?’
‘To see Katherine Hawksley at her stables.’
‘What’s your cover story?’
‘I’m looking for somewhere to stable a horse, so I’m driving around the area comparing stables to see which have the best facilities at the most competitive prices.’
‘She might recognise you from New Year’s Eve.’
‘I doubt it. Claire and I were in the background most of the time she was in the hotel.’ Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘The last thing she’d have done was look at who was there. Even if she did, it’s been six months. I doubt she’d remember anything about the evening after the set-to between Sutherland and her father.’
‘I expect you’re right,’ Henry said, putting the Hillman into gear.
‘Of course I am.’ Ena laughed, and waving out of the window with one hand she steered the Ford onto the Market Harborough road with the other.
She drove through the quaint village of Kirby Marlow. A black and white fingerpost pointed to the junior school on the right, and another to the market square and St. Peter’s Church on the left. Paved with cobblestones the square was surrounded on three sides by double-fronted buildings. There was a newsagent and pub
on the left of the square, a cobbler and blacksmith on the right - and along the top, facing the road, a baker and a butcher on either side of a general store. There was no market.
The Hawksley Stables was on the outskirts of the village. Ena pulled off the main road, not into the driveway leading to the stable block, but into a tractor-made lay-by a few yards south of an open five-bar gate. Blast! She was too late.
She watched Katherine Hawksley lock a small barn and run across the yard to her father’s silver Bentley. She opened the passenger door, dropped onto the seat, and the car pulled away. At the gated entrance the Bentley stopped and Katherine jumped out. She closed the gate, secured it with a chain attached to the gatepost and padlocked it.
Ena ducked down. She heard the car door slam and, turning left, the Bently accelerated away in the direction of Market Harborough. When Hawksley’s car had disappeared over the brow of the hill, Ena drove back to Kirby Marlow.
As she approached the school, Ena stopped and waited for several children and their mothers to cross the road. When they were safely on the opposite pavement, Ena noticed a woman put her hand up in a gesture of thanks. She looked through the windscreen and smiled - and then she looked again. The woman who had thanked her was Maeve O’Leary, and she was holding the hand of a little girl. Shocked to see Foxden Hotel’s receptionist with a child, Ena almost drove into the back of a parked car.
She pulled out and cruised along the road, slowing down to a crawl every now and then, so she didn’t overtake Maeve and the child. At St. Peter’s Church, Maeve knocked the door of the house adjoining the ancient building. A short middle-aged woman appeared in the doorway and the girl reached up to her. The woman leaned forward and gave the child a welcoming hug. As Maeve walked down the path the woman and child went into the house.
If she hadn’t already driven past the Church, Ena would have stopped and offered Maeve a lift. She thought about going back for her, but the traffic was slow moving due to a tractor. She looked in the reverse mirror. Maeve was at the bus stop. Ena opened the window and waved her hand as high in the air as she was able. It would only have taken Maeve a few seconds to run to the car, but she didn’t see her.
Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5) Page 9