Death and the Maiden (6 page)

‘And have you seen her—even caught a glimpse of her—since then?'

‘No sir!' He looked as though he might begin to cry. Tait eased the pressure.

‘All right, Trevor. Now as far as we know, Mary's death was purely an accident. But the coroner will want to know how the accident happened, so we have to try to piece together the events that led up to her death. That means talking to her family and friends, and since you go to the same school it would be a help if you can tell us who her friends were.'

The boy shook his head cautiously. ‘We're all split up. There are three parts of the school, you see. The sixth formers are in what used to be the boys'grammar school, the first year are next door in the old girls' grammar. I'm in the middle school, and we're across town in the old Alderman T. We all go to the sixth form part for science and they come to ours for drama, but I didn't often see Mary.'

‘What about friends in the village, then? You all go to school on the same bus. Who did Mary sit with?'

Trevor shrugged. ‘No one special. Anyway, she didn't go on the bus all that often. Most days she got a lift.'

Quantrill had been listening, his back to the boy. Now he turned: ‘Who with?'

Young Godbold had recovered from his fright. His voice was back in its lower register, his eyes were sullen again. But he elected to reply to Sergeant Tait rather than to Chief Inspector Quantrill. ‘Sometimes Miller, sometimes Ma Bloomfield.'

‘They're both teachers at the comprehensive, sir,' explained Godbold. ‘They both live in Ashthorpe.
Mr
Miller teaches English and Drama, doesn't he, Trevor? He lives at the Old Bakery.
Mrs
Bloomfield is the deputy headmistress. She lives in one of the houses on the edge of the green.'

Quantrill knew Mrs Bloomfield. He could have told Tait her exact address, even though he had never been there, but he left it to the constable. ‘Did they give lifts to anyone else?' he asked the boy.

‘No. Well, Mary was older than anyone else from Ashthorpe. Anyway, the rest of us would rather go by bus, we see enough of teachers when we're in school.'

‘I understand,' said Quantrill. ‘Well, that's been a help, Trevor, thank you. We'd simply like to talk to the people who knew Mary, you see.'

Trevor looked up. ‘Hey, she wasn't—?' he said excitedly, but immediately he dowsed the gleam in his eye. ‘Nothing. Doesn't matter.'

Quantrill glared at him. ‘She wasn't sexually assaulted, if that's what you mean.' He turned away angrily.

Pc Godbold was shocked, and quick in his son's defence. ‘I'm sure Trevor didn't mean that, sir, it would never have occurred to him—'

Tait stretched out an arm and drew the boy aside. Since he'd been the one to raise the subject … ‘Nice looking girl, Mary, wasn't she?' he asked, man to man.

Trevor's enthusiastic nod disproved his father's evident hope that burgeoning sexuality might somehow manage to miss a generation.

‘And she was one of the seniors, so most of the boys must have noticed her?'

Trevor's guard was up. ‘I suppose so.'

‘Did they talk about her?'

Trevor shook his head decisively. ‘She wasn't like that.' He glanced cautiously towards his father and added, ‘Not like some of'em … Anyway, Dale Kenward kept everyone else away from her. He's one of the seniors, over six foot tall, and he once knocked another boy down for saying that he fancied her.'

‘Some of the other boys were interested in her, then?'

Trevor gave a throaty chuckle: ‘Who wasn't?'

Pc Godbold, pushing forward to listen, appealed anxiously to the chief inspector. ‘Sir, it's not right! The boy's barely sixteen—'

His son shrugged, sullen again. ‘Oh well, she's dead anyway. Too bad. Can I go now?'

Quantrill nodded, tight-lipped. Godbold jerked his head at his son. The boy escaped, wrenching the door open and banging it behind him.

‘Time we moved.' The chief inspector clapped a friendly hand on the constable's shoulder. ‘They grow up before we can turn round, Charlie, don't they? Anyway, it's been a help talking to the boy. Sergeant Tait and I are going to see the parents now, and I'd be glad if you'll go down to the river. I've sent for a man in waders to search it. Get him to take a look in the muck that's dammed against the upstream arch of the bridge, will you? Remember, if it was an accident—and if Mary was alone, as you think she was—we need to find those missing shoes.'

The name Manchester House was lettered boldly above the Victorian double-front of the shop in the village street: Manchester House, R. J. Gedge, Draper and Family Grocer. The door blind was pulled down, and a notice said Closed Even for the Sale of Esso Blue, but through the windows they could see a figure in a brown dustcoat working alone at the counter.

Quantrill tapped on the glass. At first the man in the shop failed to hear; when he finally looked up and came towards the door he seemed to find motion difficult, as though he were a sleeper wading through a bad dream.

Quantrill roused him gently. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Chief Inspector Quantrill and Sergeant Tait, county CID. We're very sorry to have to trouble you at a time like this …'

Mr Gedge blinked and swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. He was lean, stooping, his thin remnant of hair appearing to be slipping off the back of his shiny head. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with his forefinger out of nervous habit as he answered.

‘Oh … Oh yes, Charlie Godbold told me that you'd want to see me.'

‘It's purely routine, sir. Just a few questions we have to ask. We won't keep you long.'

Mr Gedge backed clumsily. ‘Yes. Yes of course. You don't mind talking in here, I hope.' He pushed sideways round a stack of cardboard cartons in order to get behind the counter, on which he had been assembling a pile of groceries ‘I'm all behind, you see, on account of having to go—to go out this morning.'

‘You're working today, Mr Gedge?' asked Tait, surprised.

The shopkeeper gave a thin smile. ‘Well, I'm not open, of course, the customers couldn't expect that. But I must get the deliveries ready, I can't let my regulars down. It's the goodwill, you see, the personal service—it's the only way I can try to keep them out of the supermarkets in Breckham.' His hands moved blindly, assembling packets and cans. ‘You don't mind if I carry on, do you?'

Quantrill knew the therapeutic value of it. ‘Don't let us hinder you, Mr Gedge. We just have to ask a few questions about Mary.'

‘Yes, of course.' The dead girl's father paused in his work to push his glasses up on to his forehead and run a finger along the lower lids of his eyes. ‘Excuse me.' He turned away, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket.

Quantrill, hating the necessary intrusiveness of his job, glanced round while he gave the man time to recover. It was a tall thin shop with a heavy mahogany counter, which must have been part of the original fittings, down one side. The rest of the shop had been modernised, with open shelves and a deep freeze cabinet containing the staples, fish fingers and frozen peas; but there was still an old-fashioned bacon slicer and a cheese cutter, and the shelves behind the counter were filled with jars of sweets that reminded Quantrill of the village shop of his boyhood. And hanging from a high rack over the counter, even more reminiscent of the shop he remembered from the nineteen-forties, was the drapery section: cotton pinafores, children's socks, women's blouses, men's working shirts, tweed jackets and flat caps, all in a choice of shades and sizes. Been there ever since the'forties too, some of them, from the look of the styles.

Mr Gedge polished his glasses, pushed his handkerchief away and added a jumbo packet of cornflakes to the goods on the counter.

‘We're not sure, Mr Gedge,' Quantrill said gently, ‘when the accident happened. We have to try to establish that. Have you any idea?'

The shopkeeper looked puzzled. ‘Why, early this morning, wasn't it? Sunrise time. That's what Charlie Godbold said. She must have gone out to pick flowers—you know, May Day …' He began to sound not entirely convinced.

‘Is that what she said she was going to do?' asked Tait.

Mr Gedge looked blank. ‘Well, no. No, she didn't say anything about what she was going to do. She often went for walks though, she liked it down by the river.'

‘And you saw or heard her leaving the house early this morning?' pursued Tait.

‘Ah, well, no … But then, I wouldn't. Mary sleeps—' a spasm of grief contorted his face, but he managed to change tense without breaking down ‘—slept out in the old caravan at the far end of the orchard. Has done for the past eighteen months, except in the very worst of the weather. Liked to be a bit independent, you know how it is. Came and went as she pleased.'

Tait's head lifted with interest. Quantrill spoke quickly, before the sergeant could put too sharp a question.

‘Yes, of course, understandable at that age. But you do know for sure, Mr Gedge, that Mary slept in the caravan last night?'

‘Well, yes—I mean, where else—?'

‘At a friend's perhaps?' Quantrill suggested lightly, anxious not to alarm him.

‘Why, no. I mean, she'd have said, wouldn't she? She didn't say anything about going out last night at all. She was a quiet girl, you see, not one for racketing about. Not much opportunity, anyway, out here in the village. Besides, she always had a terrible lot of school work to do. She's—she was very clever, did you know that? Going to one of the oldest colleges in Cambridge, where they've only just started taking girls. She was so thrilled—but there, she deserved it, she'd studied night after night … only her mother didn't like her to keep late hours reading, and that's why Mary enjoyed having a bit of independence. I expect that's what she was doing last night, reading in the caravan. If she'd been going out with anyone, she'd have said.'

Quantrill had never had any illusion that his own daughters, when they lived at home, had given him an accurate account of their activities and intentions. But Mary's father had grief enough; it would be cruel to shake his conviction that she had always taken him into her confidence.

And perhaps she had. But her use of the caravan as a home worried Quantrill just as much as it interested Tait.

The sergeant was already coming in with the next question, and Quantrill was glad to hear that he phrased it kindly.

‘Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling us when you last saw Mary, Mr Gedge?'

The shopkeeper had been looking from one policeman to another with a deepening frown. Now he forced himself into activity again. He ticked an item on a grocery list, and then began to weigh out half a pound of rum and butter toffees while he talked.

‘Yes, let me see … that would have been early yesterday evening. Mary brought—' his voice tripped, but he managed to continue on a higher note ‘—she brought me a cup of tea, and stayed to serve some customers while I drank it. Thursdays and Fridays are my late opening evenings, I'm open till eight. Trying to provide a service, you see—so many women are out at work during the day. But things went quiet about half past six, and she left … Yes, that would be the last time I saw her.' He fumbled for his handkerchief again. ‘Mrs Gedge probably saw her later, she may be able to help you more than I can.'

‘We'd certainly like to talk to your wife, if she's not too distressed.'

Mr Gedge mopped his eyes and managed a smile. ‘Oh, she'll be ready for you. She's got a lot more courage than I have, she's taken this very bravely.' He lowered his voice, as Pc Godbold had done when referring to Mrs Gedge. ‘She's religious, you see. It sustains her, it really does. I sometimes wish I had it, but there …' He polished his glasses with a dry corner of his handkerchief. And then a sudden imperious rapping at the window made them all turn.

Tait went to investigate. A dark strapping middle-aged woman was peering into the shop, mouthing and gesticulating. Tait pointed to the Closed notice and waved her away, but still she rapped. Irritated, he turned the key and stepped outside, closing the door firmly behind him.

‘The shop is closed, Madam,' he said, choosing a pompous role. ‘Mr Gedge has been bereaved.'

The woman gave him a hostile stare. ‘Well I know that, don't I? Everybody in Ashthorpe knows that. And I'm sorry for him, I really am, but there … life's got to go on, and I've got nothing for my man's tea.'

Tait's professional irritation turned to genuine indignation on the shopkeeper's behalf. ‘You can hardly expect to worry Mr Gedge when his daughter has just died. I suggest that you go to one of the other shops in the village.'

The woman flushed, puce as the stripes on her nylon overall. She stood eye to eye with the sergeant. ‘Don't you tell me what to do, Sunny Jim—I'm one of Bob Gedge's best customers, and if he can't serve me during shop hours that's a rum 'un! I wouldn't intrude if he was in the house, but I know he's in the shop, I saw him, and if he's not too bereaved to get his grocery deliveries ready—'

‘Madam,' said Tait coldly, ‘we are police officers. I must ask you—'

Behind him, the door was tugged open. Mr Gedge peered out, his bald head and scrawny neck poking like those of a tortoise from the ill-fitting collar of his dust-coat.

‘Ah, there you are, Bob,' cried the woman. ‘I was only just saying—' she remembered to lower her voice: ‘Well, there, I'm ever so sorry about Mary, I really am, ever such a nice girl, and I wouldn't trouble you for the world only you weren't here this morning and I've got nothing for my man's tea and I knew you wouldn't mind.'

Mr Gedge looked worried. ‘I'm sorry, Daph, but I've got the police here you see …'