Lois Meade 01: Murder on Monday (EN, 2002) (32 page)

“You were right,” said Andrew Rix, and Lois stared at him in amazement. “Gloria was no good, but she had such a way with her when she was in a good mood. And then she could be so cruel. Poor Nurse Surfleet had a terrible time with her.”

“That old dyke!” said Melvyn. “Deserved all she got.”

“But your mother was sick in the last year or so, Melvyn,” continued the doctor. “She thought she was very ill, before she…urn…” He coughed, and seemed to search for the right words. “She was desperate for comfort, you know, in the end, and no one really cared for her…except Gillian Surfleet and her affection was thrown back in her face.”

“Ill?” said Melvyn. “How ill?” His voice was full of suspicion.

Now Josie, in spite of Lois’s fierce looks, stood up from the sofa and walked towards Melvyn. “You didn’t tell me about your poor mum, Melv,” she said, and put her hand in his. “What was wrong with her?” she continued, looking at the doctor.

“She thought it was the worst, I’m afraid,” said Andrew Rix. “Though it was far from certain. We were still doing tests, but she went completely to pieces.” He took a step towards Melvyn. “Come on, old son,” he said, but Josie stepped in front of him.

“Get away from him!” she said loudly. “Watch him, Melvyn,” she added. “They’ll try to trick you.”

“Josie!” said Lois. “For God’s sake!”

Josie took no notice of her. “Come on, Melvyn,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk, away from this lot. We can go the secret way. And don’t try to follow us, Mum!” she added. “It’s very dangerous back there by the canal, unless you know what you’re doing.” She pulled Melvyn away, towards a collapsing doorway at the back of the room.

Lois moved towards them, but Andrew Rix caught her hand and held her back. He shook his head. “Wait,” he mouthed at her. “Melvyn!” he said then, loudly, so that they could hear him.

“What?”

“Did you ever wonder why I called you that name?”

“No,” Melvyn replied flatly. “Don’t make no difference.” He’d come back into sight now, still holding Josie’s hand.

“It’s my own name,” the doctor said. “Andrew is my first, and then Melvyn. I gave you my own name. Such a tiny scrap of life…and I loved you then more than anyone before or since. I loved you and I gave you away.” He reached out his hand. “I’m so sorry, son,” he said. “So very sorry.”

Melvyn bit his lip and his eyes shut for a second. “Huh,” he said. Then he retreated again into the darkness.

“I’m going after them!” said Lois desperately. Andrew Rix shook his head. “Police,” he whispered, and made a circular motion with his hand. “Surrounded,” he added.

But Lois could not see Josie go without her and she walked quietly after them. It was without air or light, evil-smelling, a cocktail of human detritus and the stagnant canal. She felt her way carefully, so as not to make a noise, aiming for a slit of light up ahead. Another door, and she prised it open slowly. Dazzled by the light, it was seconds before she could see the canal only feet away from her. An overgrown path led along the back of the factory, and she peered out. Josie and Melvyn were there, up by the old brick bridge, a couple of children, hand in hand. In front of them stood the police, two of them, and one of them was Hunter Cowgill. Lois stared, petrified, scared to move a muscle in case she should precipitate something unthinkable.

Melvyn moved sideways suddenly, and before the police could be there, he was on the bridge, holding on to the wooden rail and dragging Josie after him. Lois was frozen to the spot. She saw the rail snap and Melvyn fall backwards, hitting the black water with a yell that cut into her, breaking the spell, and she ran forward. Josie was still on the bridge, her arm held tight by Hunter Cowgill, who had got there just in time.

“Take her,” he said to Lois. “And wait in the car.” But Josie would not go. She was screaming Melvyn’s name, pulling away and trying to go in after him. “Josie!” said Lois sharply. “Do as you’re bloody well told!” Josie stopped struggling and began to cry.

“Mum, they’ve got to get him out,” she said.

Cowgill stepped forward. “We shall, Josie,” he said. “Look, Simpson’s there already.” He strode off down the towpath, and Lois heard him say, “He’s got a knife. Get him…but remember the girl’s watching.”

∗

Much later, after Josie was in bed and asleep at last, Lois remembered Cowgill’s words. “He can’t be such a bad bloke, that Inspector,” she said to Derek, who sat holding her hand. “To think of Josie watching. Thoughtful of him…”

“Don’t trust any of ‘em,” said Derek. He was still trying to sort out the whole thing, but overriding everything, filling his head, was the fact that his Josie could easily be dead. “Steer clear of them all in future, Lois, and that’s an order,” he said.

L
ate summer in Long Farnden, and the village was quiet at last. The long street with stone houses on either side had finally seen the last of the gawpers and ghouls. A black and white cat stalked out of a gateway and crossed the road, leaping up and lightly touching the top of a stone wall before disappearing amongst bright flowers and trees that were beginning to turn to autumn colours.

Two cars cruised slowly into the village from the Tresham road and came to rest outside a substantial red-brick house. The
For Sale
notice had slipped to one side and the estate agent, slamming his car door and aiming his key at it, turned to straighten up the board.

“Kids!” he said, and smiled at the young couple who had emerged from the other car. “Come along, this way,” he encouraged them. They opened the gate and walked up to the front door. Blank windows on either side gave the house a gloomy air, and as the agent unlocked the door and beckoned the couple into the hallway, they shivered, although the day was warm and the sun bright.

“It’s been on the market some time, I believe?” said the young man.

“Ah, yes, well,” said the agent, opening a window in the big, high-ceilinged drawing-room. “The market has been a bit depressed.” He pointed out the attractive features, the elegant marble fireplace, plasterwork on the ceiling, and a well-polished parquet floor.

“We’d heard something about a scandal in this village,” said the young wife. “Didn’t this house belong to a doctor?”

The agent looked uncomfortable. “Yes, quite right,” he said briskly. “He’s retired now – gone off to the West Country for a well-earned rest. These GPs, you know,” he chatted on brightly. “They have a very difficult job. Long hours, night calls, father confessors…all that.” He motioned them across the hallway into another room, the twin of the first, but with a hatch through to a large kitchen. “The dining-room,” he announced, and once more showed them its attractive aspects.

“This doctor,” persisted the wife, and the agent frowned, “wasn’t he involved in that murder case? Some woman strangled in the village hall? Not that long ago, was it, Simon?”

Her husband nodded. “We were discussing it on the way over,” he explained. “Remembered the village name from the stories in the paper. Big splash at the time, wasn’t it?”

The agent sighed. He realized he would have to come clean. “Quite right,” he said, and hoped he could make it as brief and unalarming as possible. “The doctor here had an affair with that woman years ago and she’d had a baby. Got him adopted privately, but the boy found out who his real parents were, and when his mother didn’t want to know, he killed her. Then the whole scandal came out: woman had been the village bike – several respectable citizens – ”

“Including the vicar,” said the wife with a smile.

“Yes, including the vicar,” continued the agent. “They’d been her secret lovers. Real goings-on! Police got the lad, didn’t they?”

The young couple couldn’t remember the details. Something about a cleaning lady and her daughter. “All water under the bridge, anyway,” said the agent. “Now, let’s go upstairs. Lovely spacious bedrooms, two bathrooms…”

The young woman shook her head. “Don’t fancy it, Simon, do you?”

Her husband looked doubtful. “The price is very good,” he said.

“No, I couldn’t live here, knowing all that.”

She shook her head firmly and made for the door.

As they emerged once more into the sunshine, another car drew up. It had a battered air, and skidded a little, sending up a cloud of summer dust at the side of the road.

“Ah,” said the estate agent. “My next client. Good morning, then,” he added, shaking the young man firmly by the hand. “Sorry we couldn’t interest you.” The young couple drove slowly down the street, stopping briefly outside the village hall, the vicarage, a quaint cottage that looked like a tea-cosy, and then accelerated and disappeared.

“Morning!” said the agent, turning on his welcoming smile. “Mrs Meade, isn’t it?”

Lois walked towards him, and behind her Josie trailed, dragging her feet. The long school holidays had been difficult to fill, once the horror and pain had abated. Now she’d agreed to come with her mother because it was better than staying at home on her own. Her friends had pestered her at first, then slowly melted away. She didn’t care. They were all just kids. Anyway, she’d never been to Long Farnden, and she was curious.

They followed the agent into the house, and as he began his sales patter, Lois said, “You can save your breath. I know this house. I used to work in this village, but not any more.”

The agent’s eyebrows went up. “For the doctor?” he said.

Lois nodded. “And you needn’t ask me any questions,” she added quickly, practised now at fending off unwanted attention, “I don’t talk about it. In fact,” she added, “you could just wait in the car and let me and Josie go round on our own. We’ll come and find you when we’ve finished.” He looked doubtful, but agreed reluctantly and left them to it.

It was an odd experience for Lois, and she was glad that Josie had decided to come with her. She walked slowly from room to room, and remembered snatches of conversation with Mary Rix: the time they’d turned out the baby’s room, the days she’d ushered Gloria Hathaway into the doctor’s surgery, and Mary’s strange reaction. Most of all she felt the doctor’s presence.

“What was he like?” said Josie suddenly. Lois caught her breath. It was the first time Josie had asked any kind of question connected with Melvyn. She’d gone through the whole aftermath of that dreadful day in the derelict factory in a kind of mutinous silence, as if she blamed her mother and father, the doctor, the police, the Hallhouses – everyone and anyone – for what had happened to Melvyn.

It was this house, Lois realized, that had suddenly warmed Josie into life. It wasn’t chilly, or frightening, for them. And the doctor’s presence was so strong and reassuring, just like it had always been.

“Sit here,” she said, putting her arm round Josie and drawing her down to sit on a window seat in the sun. “He was very nice, the doctor,” she began. “Kind and thoughtful. Always polite to me. Didn’t treat me like dirt, like some of them.”

“What about his wife?” said Josie.

“They’d had sadness,” Lois replied. “Tried hard for a baby and never made it. But quite recently they’d come out of that, and were happy. For the first time for ages, I reckon.”

“He had it off with that Gloria, though,” said Josie.

“So did several of them,” said Lois. “A randy professor and the vicar. You remember him when you were in hospital that time. He wasn’t bad. And the cool bloke at the gallery. He’s still here and his wife must be having her baby now, or soon, anyway. Funny couple, but suited, in a way. The professor’s gone, but they were that sort, always moving on.”

“Why didn’t the doctor take Melvyn to live with him, if they couldn’t have a baby of their own?” Josie couldn’t leave the subject, now she’d started. She needed to know what had been so unbearable for Melvyn.

Lois shook her head. “Don’t know,” she said. “But if you think about it, Mary Rix would’ve had to have been a saint. Couldn’t produce one of her own, and then be expected to bring up a little boy her husband had fathered with his fancy woman! Blimey, Josie, can you imagine it?”

Josie didn’t answer. She could only picture a tiny baby, wrapped in a shawl, howling for his mother who didn’t want him. She shivered. “What about the vicar? What happened to him?” she asked.

“Resigned,” said Lois. “Gone to London. He sent us a card, remember? Working in some boys’ club and engaged to be married. Probably the best thing he could do. He certainly wasn’t happy here.”

Josie wandered out of the big kitchen and started to climb the wide stairs. “What about us, then, Mum?” she said. “Could we be happy here?”

Lois looked down at the sheet of agents’ particulars in her hand. The price was ridiculously low, and Derek had said to go ahead, if that’s what she wanted. She stood up and followed Josie to the foot of the stairs. She thought of Nurse Surfleet, still living and working in the village, full of bitter memories. Her part in the sordid affair had somehow been hushed up and hadn’t come out in the press, though of course the village knew and lost their respect for her as a result. Lois thought it strange that she hadn’t moved away.

It was a couple of minutes before Lois answered Josie’s question. Would Derek like it here? Plenty of outbuildings and a big garden. He’d like that. And rooms for all the kids to have one each, with a huge attic where they could have their stuff.

“What do
you
think, Josie?” she said. She felt out of her depth still with Josie. They’d had all kinds of counselling, of course, but Josie had maintained a stubborn silence, turned in on herself in a grief she could not share. For hours, it seemed to Lois and Derek, she shut herself in her bedroom, talking quietly to the little ginger cat. Time, the experts said. Give her time, and she’ll come out of it. Now she seemed to have begun, and Lois was anxious to get it right.

Josie didn’t reply, and carried on up the stairs with Lois following. “Where’s that little room you told me about,” Josie said at last, adding, “Where they’d set it up for a baby.” Lois showed her. It was bare, except for the curtains left behind, the nursery curtains that Mary Rix had decided to leave there when it became a sewing room, but in the end had abandoned.