Authors: Wendy Percival
25
Esme sat in her car at Wisteria House clutching the documents Polly had entrusted to her. She understood now why Polly had been unable to confide in her before. The papers showed that the property had been made over to Polly recently from the previous owner – Catherine Marguerite Monkleigh. Sight of the document would have raised questions which were no longer relevant now that Esme knew about Catherine and Daisy. Daisy had apparently acquired the cottage after a reunion with her father, some years before he died. Esme wondered whether his exasperation with Leonard’s behaviour had contributed to his change in attitude towards his daughter, assuming what Polly had said about him was correct.
Now Esme intended to tackle Mary. She wondered how much she genuinely knew or whether it had been Polly’s response to Mary’s threats which had alerted Mary into thinking Polly had something to hide, without knowing the details. Mary had told Esme that Polly had a ‘guilty conscience’, easy enough to read into Polly’s reaction, whilst Polly had been too distressed to call Mary’s bluff. Was that all this was – a bluff? Even if Mary had guessed the truth, she wouldn’t know whether Polly taking Catherine wasn’t a legitimate instruction from her father to move his daughter to a place of safety from the feared bombing campaign. Mary had left the household immediately after the sighting and wouldn’t have known that Catherine had never returned.
After Polly had passed Esme the document she was supposed to sign, she appeared drained of emotion, as though finally unleashing the truth had exhausted her. Or perhaps she had simply reached a state of acceptance, realising that the fight to keep the past hidden seemed suddenly futile and she hadn’t the strength to continue any longer.
Esme leaned over and shoved the papers into her bag in the passenger footwell. She hadn’t yet worked out her approach with Mary yet, but she hoped that she would think of something before she got there. She fitted the key in the ignition and turned it. The car rumbled into life. Esme reached for her seatbelt and clicked it into place. She hesitated. There was something she had wanted to clarify with Polly but she couldn’t place it. She was sure it was significant. She banged the steering wheel with the heel of her hand. Everything about this situation was like this. Something always on the edge of consciousness, which she couldn’t quite grasp.
She put the car into reverse to manoeuvre around the Land Rover parked next to her, then engaged first gear and steered towards the exit. The driveway opened out on to a quiet road with little traffic. She paused to ensure the way was clear and then pulled out.
Suddenly a black car shot from nowhere to her right, threatening to ram her in the side. She slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel hard to the left, throwing files and books from the back seat on to the floor behind her. The car roared past.
She cursed the driver but by now the car was almost out of sight. It had been an Audi, she was sure. They seemed to be appearing everywhere she went. Either going very slowly or very quickly.
She took a deep breath and resumed her journey. She was approaching the junction to the main road when she suddenly remembered something. Perhaps it had been the black car which had prompted her to think of funerals. Daisy died on 1 December. She’d known the date was significant when she saw it printed on the front of the Order of Service for Daisy’s funeral in Polly’s drawer, but she couldn’t think why. Now she knew. It was the date the police had said Leonard Nicholson was suspected of stalking Catherine. Which meant, of course, that he’d been following Daisy. Had he caught up with her? And more significantly, if he had, did his presence have any bearing on her untimely death?
Esme did a U-turn at the junction and sped back to Wisteria House.
*
Esme burst through the front door. Mrs Rowcliffe was standing in the hall putting on her coat, presumably about to leave for home. She looked round in surprise at Esme’s explosive arrival.
‘Whatever’s wrong?’
‘Where’s Mrs Roberts?’ panted Esme.
‘Having her tea, I expect. What’s happened?’
‘I need to talk to her.’ Esme sailed past the matron and ran round the corner towards the entrance to the dining room. Several residents were moving along the corridor on their way to tea. Polly had just reached the door.
‘Mrs Roberts?’ called Esme. ‘Can I have a word?’
All heads turned as Esme caught up with the old lady.
‘What on earth’s going on?’ said Polly. Leaning on her stick, she reached out with her free hand and touched Esme’s arm. ‘Is it Elizabeth?’
Esme shook her head. ‘No, she’s fine. There’s something I need to ask you.’ She looked around at the audience they had attracted. ‘Shall we go and talk in the lounge?’
Polly turned and they made their way along the corridor into the visitors’ lounge. Polly dropped into the armchair nearest the door and propped her stick up against the arm.
‘What is it?’ Her eyes were wide open and her lip quivered.
Esme crouched down in front of the old lady. ‘The day Daisy died,’ she began.
Polly flinched. ‘Daisy? Why do you need to ask about Daisy?’
‘It’s important, please,’ urged Esme. ‘Was Daisy at home on her own that day?’ This was critical. If Polly had been with Daisy when she died, it would change everything and Esme could relax.
The old lady looked alarmed. ‘Well, for a short time…but why? I don’t understand.’
Esme hesitated. She couldn’t say anything until she was sure. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Polly stared at Esme for a moment as if considering whether to speak or refuse and go back to her tea. After a tense moment she chose to speak.
‘I’d been here in the afternoon.’ Her eyes flickered and she blinked. ‘A vacancy had come up and I came to see it. Elizabeth brought me. Daisy had an appointment.’
‘With her solicitor?’
Polly nodded. ‘We got home about four o’clock. It was getting dark. I remember thinking Daisy couldn’t be home yet because there were no lights on. I was relieved in a way. I didn’t like leaving her on her own, though Carol would have stayed with her until we got back.’
‘Carol?’ Esme shifted her position and pulled up a footstool in front of the old lady’s chair.
‘Her friend. She’s a nurse. She went with Daisy to her appointment. She carries oxygen in her medical bag for emergencies, you know the sort of thing. Daisy occasionally needed oxygen, you see. Her condition meant that she had to have it close by.’
‘And did Carol stay on after they got back?’
Mrs Roberts shook her head. ‘Carol told me later that Daisy had said not to wait as she expected us back soon and Carol needed to collect her children from school.’ There she paused for a moment, composing herself before carrying on. ‘Daisy was lying on the floor in the living room when we walked in. It was too late.’ The old lady reached for the handkerchief in her sleeve and blew her nose.
Esme reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘And they thought her illness was the cause of death?’
‘They assumed she didn’t reach her oxygen in time.’ Polly squeezed her handkerchief into a ball in her fist. ‘It was in the hall,’ she said slowly. She looked up at Esme. ‘Why was it in the hall?’
Esme’s stomach leap-frogged. ‘So it wasn’t usually in there?’
Polly shook her head furiously. ‘No, of course not. It was kept in the living room where she could get to it easily. Beside the armchair. I didn’t stop to think about it at the time, but it shouldn’t have been in the hall. What was it doing there?’ She grabbed Esme’s arm. ‘Who would have moved it?’
‘When the police came and asked about Catherine,’ said Esme, ‘they mentioned her cousin, Leonard.’ Polly looked terrified. Esme wondered if she’d already guessed what Esme was about to suggest.
‘They said they suspected him of following her,’ Esme continued. ‘What if he’d followed her back to the cottage and when Carol left, he’d gone in to talk to her? Could it be Leonard who moved the oxygen? Maybe he pulled it out of her reach as a threat?’
‘Why would he?’ gasped Polly. Her face was white and drawn but Esme couldn’t stop now.
‘Because that’s what this is all about. Your cottage used to be part of the estate, didn’t it? Perhaps he thought it ought to belong to him? Maybe he tried to persuade her to part with it?’
Polly shook her head in bewilderment as if she couldn’t cope with the enormity of what she was hearing. ‘Don’t you see?’ urged Esme, unwilling to spell it out but desperate for Polly to understand the true state of affairs. ‘He could have been responsible for her death.’
The old lady gave a sob and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth.
‘We must tell the police,’ said Esme.
‘No!’ Polly began shaking uncontrollably.
Esme laid her hand on the old lady’s arm. ‘We have to. The police don’t know that Catherine and Daisy were the same person. They wouldn’t realise the significance.’
And neither had Leonard Nicholson.
At first Esme hadn’t understood why Leonard believed that Daisy’s death would get him the cottage. Daisy had beneficiaries; her daughter Elizabeth and granddaughter Gemma. Surely his investigations would have thrown up that piece of information?
But Leonard wasn’t looking for Daisy. He was looking for Catherine. He would have tracked down Catherine and found the cottage registered in her name and would have learned that Catherine had no children. As far as Leonard Nicholson was concerned, he was Catherine’s next of kin and in line to inherit the cottage on her death. It must have seemed so simple to him.
Only one thing remained unclear. Why hadn’t Daisy told him the truth? Perhaps she had and he had killed her in fury. And having learned the truth, was that why he’d turned his attention to Elizabeth? Had he intended to eliminate her too?
Esme shuddered. Had that really been his objective? Esme didn’t think so. The expectation of inheritance would have evaporated by then and he would have been forced to invent a more complex plan.
Esme looked at Polly. Her eyes were filled with tears which slowly overflowed and ran down her cheeks. Esme felt a tug of sympathy for her. She had seemed so much more at ease with everything a few hours earlier and now her world had been turned on its head, just when she thought the end of the nightmare was in sight.
Polly suddenly blew her nose and dried her eyes with her handkerchief.
‘If he did that to Daisy…’ She looked up at Esme with reddened eyes, and voiced something which hadn’t occurred to Esme before. ‘What about, Elizabeth? It was him in the park, wasn’t it?’ Her next words undermined everything Esme had just reassured herself regarding Leonard’s motives.
Polly reached over and touched Esme’s arm. ‘You don’t think he’ll try again, do you, in the hospital?’
26
Esme immediately shelved her plan to confront Mary that day. After Polly’s fearful question about whether Elizabeth was under threat from Leonard she was anxious to call in at the hospital as soon as possible. In any case, by the time Esme had parried Mrs Rowcliffe’s questions about Polly’s distress the day had slipped into evening and dusk was falling. Esme had no desire to trawl around Shropton in the dark trying to find Mary’s house. Besides, there would be more chance of catching her on her own on a weekday. Polly had told her Mary had a son and grandson who lived with her in Fletcher Street. With luck they’d be at work on a Monday morning.
The matron accepted Esme’s explanation that Polly had received some bad news about a friend, though Esme suspected she was not entirely convinced. But she said nothing, probably motivated by her desire to get home after a long day.
There was nothing to report at the hospital. Elizabeth was still sleeping peacefully and to the knowledge of the nurse on duty, no strangers had attempted to barge their way in to see her. The nurse seemed to take it as an insult that the question should even be raised. Elizabeth’s visitors were strictly controlled, she assured Esme. Family and specific friends, and the hospital knew them all. There would be no danger of anyone being allowed in who hadn’t already been given permission. She’d looked at Esme briefly as if questioning her sanity but, having decided to put it down to the pressure Esme must be under, smiled reassuringly and returned to her station. Esme hesitated. Should she have made more of the issue, suggested police protection? Part of her thought she was overreacting, part that it was prudent to be cautious. She decided to discuss it with the inspector when she spoke to him.
The answer-phone was blinking when she got in. She’d missed Gemma again. There was a short message which was no more than an echo of the one Esme had left Gemma. They seemed to spend their time trying to catch hold of one another. Gemma’s mobile phone was invariably switched off because she was in theatre and Esme’s was because Esme had never been very good at remembering to switch it on in the first place. She had always been careful to turn it off when in libraries and archives, but hopeless at turning it back on when she left.
Making a mental note to become more vigilant, Esme dialled Gemma’s home phone. No reply. She got a similar result on Gemma’s mobile. She must be at the hospital, probably arriving as Esme was leaving. They seemed to be destined not to make contact.
Esme threw off her coat and fished around in her bag for the inspector’s number. She thought it unlikely that he would be at his desk at this time on a Sunday evening and she was right. The person at the other end asked if she would like to leave a message or speak to someone else. Esme hesitated and asked if Sergeant Morris was available. He wasn’t. She left her name and said she would try again in the morning.
She went into the kitchen to make herself something to eat while she worked out how she was going to deal with Mary Watts the following day. She was under no delusions that it was going to be easy.
*
Fletcher Street was the last in a maze of roads which formed an untidy and badly constructed council estate. One end of it fed back towards the town centre where the estate merged with older and more aesthetically pleasing properties. Number twelve was one of the ugly houses. Esme parked a short distance along the street and walked back.
She’d still not managed to speak to the inspector. He’d already gone out when she called first thing that morning. She’d glanced at the clock, still showing that it was well before eight. He obviously liked an early start. She had still been in her dressing gown, intending to give Mary’s family plenty of time to leave the house for work before she arrived. There was no guarantee that Mary would be at home but first thing on a Monday was as good a time as any.
Esme walked past an old Ford Escort, its back half-propped up on two unstable piles of bricks. She was reminded of an episode of a television crime series where the detective had gone to interview a suspect and emerged after the encounter to discover that the wheels had been removed from his car. Esme glanced around and told herself she was letting her imagination run away with her.
When she reached number twelve she stood on the pavement and looked up at the house. The façade was a pinkish shade of pebbledash. Her grandmother’s house had had a similar coating. It was a horrible surface, she remembered. Many times she’d brushed up against it and shred several layers of skin.
She turned down the cracked concrete path, similar in colour to the house walls. There was grass either side of the path, in need of a mow but not excessively overgrown. The sound of the television resounded through the net curtained front windows to the right hand side of the entrance.
She halted at the bottom of the path and looked at the door in front of her. There was no bell or knocker so she rapped loudly on the centre panel between two long frosted panes of glass. She spied a figure through the semi-opaque glass shuffling towards her and a moment later the door was flung open.
Mary stood on the threshold, her straight hair clipped tightly to her head with hairgrips. She was wearing an old-fashioned wrap-around floral apron, the type Esme always associated with Mrs Scrubbit, a character from television’s
The Wooden Tops
which she used to watch as a child.
‘Yes?’ Mary barked.
‘Mary Watts?’ There was no doubt it was the same woman whom Esme had encountered at Wisteria House. Surely Mary must recognise Esme. How could she not with such a visible signature on her face?
The old woman scowled and peered at her. ‘Who are you?’ She evidently didn’t enjoy receiving visitors unannounced. Perhaps they usually spelt trouble.
Esme returned her hard stare. ‘My name’s Esme Quentin. I’d like to speak to you. About Polly Roberts.’
Mary narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re her who was at the home, aren’t you?’ She puffed herself up and tried to look at Esme down her nose, which was difficult to achieve since she was considerably shorter. ‘I haven’t got anything to say to you,’ she announced and went to close the door. Esme put her hand out and prevented her pushing it to.
‘I have a message from her.’
The woman hesitated. ‘What sort of message?’
There was a noise from next door’s front garden, if it could be called a garden; it had the characteristics of a junk yard, several rusting motorbikes and a tarpaulin half-heartedly draped over another machine in a less dilapidated condition.
Mary glanced in the direction of the sound. At the same time someone else appeared in the hall. Esme could detect a shadow moving somewhere in the background. So Mary wasn’t alone. This might be more difficult than she’d hoped. The shadow moved closer and a middle-aged man came into view. He stopped behind Mary’s shoulder and looked quizzically at Esme. There was something incongruous about him as if he didn’t fit his surroundings. If he hadn’t been in his shirtsleeves Esme would have thought him some sort of visiting official.
‘Who’s this, Mother?’ His voice was surprisingly gentle compared with Mary’s harsh growl.
Esme was surprised to see Mary look uncomfortable and fail to reply. Esme took advantage of the old woman’s reticence to introduce herself. The man, she learnt, was Mary’s son Will. He scanned her face briefly, a flicker of the eyes his only reaction, smiled politely and turned to Mary.
‘Mother, are you going to leave the lady on the doorstep?’ Esme suspected that was exactly what Mary wished to do. Better still, banish her from the district. What she clearly didn’t want to do was invite her into the house. Esme took comfort in that. It suggested that Mary wasn’t keen for Will to hear what Esme had to say.
Mary pursed her lips and after hurling a furious look at Esme turned away abruptly and tramped back down the hall.
Will pulled the door open and gestured Esme inside.
‘You must forgive my mother,’ he said closing the front door. ‘She hasn’t yet learnt the gentle art of social interaction.’
‘Oh, cut out the airs and graces,’ yelled Mary over her shoulder. ‘You ain’t impressing anyone. Least of all her.’ She shuffled into what appeared to be the kitchen and slammed the door.
‘Now then, Mrs…?’ said Will, hastily. ‘Sorry, what did you say your name was?’
‘Quentin. Esme Quentin.’
‘What can we do for you?’ His tone was forced as though he was over compensating for his mother’s surliness or maybe he was trying to raise his naturally quiet voice so as to be heard above the noise of the television. The sound of machinegun fire and squealing tyres had increased in intensity and threatened to swamp their conversation.
Will looked at her quizzically, so Esme tried to ignore the noise and address the reason for her visit.
‘To be honest, Mr Watts, it’s your mother I’ve come to see. It’s about Mrs Polly Roberts.’
Will looked momentarily startled but regained his composure almost immediately. His jolly manner changed to one of indifference. ‘Oh?’ He seemed suddenly to be interested in a thread on his cuff to avoid her eyes.
Esme looked hard at him. ‘I have a message from her. For your mother. There’s been a…’ she struggled for the right word,’ an arrangement between them but Mrs Roberts has decided to end it. I’ve come to make that clear to Mrs Watts.’
He said nothing at first. He seemed confused, as though he had been expecting her to say something quite different. Esme stared at him, trying to blot out the roar of swooping aeroplanes coming from the front room. Obviously the chase had taken to the air.
Will pulled himself up straight. ‘I don’t approve, you know.’
The comment was unexpected. Was he saying he knew what was going on? Mary’s discomfort had indicated otherwise.
The front room door suddenly flew open and the sounds exploded into the hall along with a gawky teenager who looked as if a hairbrush was something to which he’d never been introduced. He appeared bewildered at finding two people in the hall and came to an abrupt halt. He peered at Esme and Will in turn through a curtain of lank hair.
‘Can’t you see we’ve got a visitor, Billy?’ Will sighed. The young man grunted and went back into the room, slamming the door behind him. Esme assumed that Will meant him to turn the sound down, but the volume remained unaltered.
‘You said you didn’t approve,’ prompted Esme. ‘What did you mean?’
‘This feud between my mother and Mrs Roberts. It started years ago and it is quite ridiculous that it is being drawn out in this way. I have told my mother, begged her even, to let sleeping dogs lie, but I’m afraid she is adamant.’
‘Do you know what the feud is all about, Mr Watts?’
His flickered glance implied that he did but his reply was uncooperative. ‘I will not be drawn in to going through it all over again.’ He frowned at Esme. ‘And you should take the same line with Mrs Roberts.’
Esme glared at him. ‘I have no desire for this feud to be drawn out any more than you have,’ said Esme, cocking her chin. ‘I am only concerned about dealing with its consequences.’
He flinched and looked embarrassed at her retort. What had he expected in response to such an officious rebuke?
Esme pulled her bag from her shoulder and took out the document. ‘Were you aware that your mother has been trying to blackmail Mrs Roberts?’ She was pleased to see that he looked shocked. Maybe she did have an ally, after all. ‘Your mother gave Mrs Roberts this to sign.’ She thrust the paper at him. ‘It’s for the transfer of property. Mrs Roberts was being coerced into parting with a parcel of land in addition to her cottage. Valuable land that she was to be paid nothing for. I’ve come to tell your mother that she can do her worst. Mrs Roberts has no intention of signing.’
The door at the end of the hall opened abruptly. Esme turned to see Mary emerge from the kitchen.
‘It was justice!’ she shrieked.
Will glanced in the direction of the front room from where the tone of the music suggested that the credits were rolling. He ushered Esme down the hall and into the kitchen. He followed her in and closed the door. Mary stepped back in to the room in surprise.
‘What’s going on? What you bringing her in here for?’
‘It’s about time this was sorted,’ said Will. ‘I’ve just about had enough.’
Esme watched them as they glared at one another. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the end of the kitchen table. Her action seemed to break the deadlock. Mary redirected her glare towards Esme and then slowly sunk down on to the chair at the other end. Only then did Will take his own seat between the two of them.
Mary had found her voice again. ‘It’s justice,’ she repeated. ‘I only did what’s right.’
Will was scathing. ‘Justice? How can a prejudiced old woman like you know what’s justice?’ He shook the piece of paper at her and dropped it disgustedly on the table. ‘Making her give away what was rightfully hers? Is that justice?’
‘But it wasn’t hers! They did him out of his rightful inheritance, they did. Left him without a penny. I only did what was fair.’ Mary leant forward and stabbed her finger on the document. ‘This should have been his.’
‘I assume we’re talking about Sir Charles’s nephew?’ said Esme.
There was the sound of a door opening and then footsteps banged up the stairs. Another door banged shut above. The television still blared out its din from the other room. No one made any attempt to go and turn it off. They seemed to be unaware of the way it pervaded the house, how it added to the feeling of claustrophobia. Three aggrieved adults thrown together around a table, arguing over something about which none of them fully understood. Except perhaps Mary.
‘Catherine Monkleigh. Turned up out the blue and took it all from him, she did.’ Mary spoke the name with unmistakable sarcasm. Was that a deliberate ploy to show that she knew that Catherine was also Daisy? Or was that Esme’s interpretation, knowing what she did?
‘As I understand it, there wasn’t anything to take.’
Mary turned on Esme. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘The estate. There wasn’t any money in it. The cottage was Catherine’s. She didn’t take anything from him. He just wanted it for himself.’