Murder in the Afternoon (31 page)

‘Mary Jane, they’re probably just gathering information.’ But I allowed myself to hope. Only one constable escorted Raymond.

Mary Jane stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Raymond’s getting married tomorrow. Me and Ethan were supposed to be at the wedding. He worships Ethan. If he knows anything, he’ll tell it. He will.’ Her voice fell to almost a whisper. ‘He’ll get our house. It always goes to a mason.’

There came a muffled sound from the other side of the partition. Marcus had said he wanted Mary Jane’s reactions to two men who would be brought in. Well, now he had her reaction. No doubt in just a moment more I should be called away. I strained my ears for another noise
from beyond the partition, or the corridor, but all was silence.

Mary Jane couldn’t be still. She sat down. She stood up. She walked across the room. She went back to the window.

‘Oh look!’ Mary Jane’s joy transformed her face. ‘He’s come to tell them that it wasn’t me. I knew he’d stand by me.’

I looked down. The man approaching the door below strode purposefully, unescorted. It was Bob Conroy.

How long would this go on? Would we have to watch the entire male population of Great Applewick cross the threshold of Otley police station?

She banged on the window, trying to attract Bob’s attention.

The look of pleasure made her face young. At the sight of him, care fled, her cheeks flushed. He had not heard her, but she smiled. ‘You know who’ll stand by you in dark times.’

It was the line of her high cheekbone, the curve of her eyebrow, the shape of her mouth.

And I knew. It hit me like a punch in the gut.

I took out my notebook and quickly scribbled,
You need the lavatory now!

She looked at the page, and was about to rephrase my words back as a question, when I shook my head. Her mouth fell open as she looked at the thin partition wall, and at the door. The penny dropped.

‘I need the lavatory, Kate. I can’t wait.’

‘I’ll get someone.’ I tried the door. It was locked. I rattled the knob, and urged her with my eyes to play her part.

‘It’s … you know … Kate, do something or I shall be so embarrassed.’

I knocked loudly on the door. When the constable unlocked it, I said, in the same voice I would use to report an unexploded bomb, ‘Where is the nearest ladies’ convenience?’ I could see from his face that he did not know. No one had asked him such a question before.

‘I can find out,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘This is an urgent female matter,’ I whispered so as not to embarrass the female in question. ‘I shall vouch for Mrs Armstrong’s return.’

With that I grabbed Mary Jane’s hand and raced along the corridor and down the stairs.

‘Where are we going? Are we running away?’

‘We’re not running away. We’re looking for a lavatory.’

We hurried along the corridor, down a flight of stairs.

It was a gent’s lavatory and it stunk but had the advantage of being unoccupied. I kept my back to the door.

‘What is it?’ Mary Jane asked. ‘Is it to do with Bob Conroy?’

‘No.’
Though I know you probably feel you made the wrong choice and wish you’d married him
. ‘Mary Jane, it wasn’t that. It was the expression on your face when you saw him. You suddenly looked younger, and I thought where have I seen that face before?’

There was little light in the room, yet the striking similarity would not go away.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You told me that it was because of the two children you wouldn’t leave Great Applewick. That puzzled me, because you didn’t mean Harriet and Austin. You let me think you meant the two little ones in the chapel graveyard. But that wasn’t true. It was the other two children who kept you here. The boys, the Ledger boys.’

She took a shuddering breath. ‘How … what made you …?’

‘The portrait that hangs in the Ledgers’ drawing room. The likeness is there. So obvious. That’s why the Ledgers wanted you out of the way, in case someone guessed, perhaps even the boys themselves. Children always think they don’t really belong to the family they are born into. Those Ledger boys, they’re yours aren’t they?’

‘I swore to never …. You’re guessing.’

‘Mary Jane, your life may be at stake. I’m on your side, perhaps the only one who truly is on your side.’

‘Bob …’

Footsteps approached along the corridor. I put a finger to my lips. The footsteps continued. When the footsteps had passed, I said, ‘Tell me I’m right.’

‘I … I … Oh Kate, I can’t.’

‘Trust me. I’m your sister, the one you didn’t want to lose. Well, you’ve got me back. Now tell me.’

‘Mrs Ledger couldn’t have children. She … We went on holiday together, the three of us. The mistress was called away because her mother was sick. It was just the colonel and me, and somehow … He fell in love with me Kate, he truly did. Mrs Ledger was very understanding, said she would keep the child and no one need know.’

‘And that happened twice?’

I tried to keep the disbelief from my voice that Mary Jane could have been so naïve. The colonel wanted an heir and a spare and not succeeding with his wealthy landowning wife, the two of them had contrived to deal with the situation in a more subtle and effective way. They must have been disappointed when Mary Jane did not take the money and leave the area. Mrs Ledger’s tale regarding wanting Mary Jane to marry Bob Conroy and stay on the
farm was a lie. Ethan the stonemason was the man most likely to move on. Ethan the troublesome stonemason was always the favoured choice of someone to take a troublesome maid off their hands. But perhaps Ethan the stonemason had found out.

‘Did Ethan know about the Ledger children?’ I asked.

‘No. Nobody knew, except the doctor and nurse, and they were well paid to keep quiet. The nurse has a house in Ilkley, rent free for life.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think Miss Trimble might have guessed?’

Because if she did, I thought, it may have cost her life.

Voices called to each other, that the women had vanished. Marcus ordered someone to go outside and search.

I whispered again, ‘Could Miss Trimble have guessed? Think!’

‘There was a day, a Sunday, when the Ledgers came with the boys to church and the little one began to cry. I jumped up from my seat and I was about to go to him. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. Ethan wasn’t with me. I was in the aisle, hurrying towards their pew and Miss Trimble gave me such a look, just as Bob came and took my arm and led me outside, and I pretended I’d felt faint.’

I nodded.

‘You better use one of those smelly lavatories, Mary Jane. It’ll probably be a while before you can go again. I’ll hold this door.’

Moments later, we stepped into the corridor. The constable who had tailed us covered his embarrassment with bombast. ‘You shouldn’t have run so far ahead of me. I went walking on. I didn’t imagine you would have
entered a gentlemen’s convenience. There’s a search going on.’

‘Sorry. It was an emergency. We couldn’t see the ladies’ convenience.’

We trailed in silence behind him. When we returned to the interview room, the constable opened the door for Mary Jane, but barred my way.

She gave me a brave smile and raised her hand.

Marcus’s familiar footsteps came up the stairs. I had never seen him out of breath before. ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘Sorry.’

Back in his vomit-coloured office I reported on what he knew very well, having listened from the other side of the wall.

‘She was not surprised to see Mr Turnbull, the quarry foreman. He’s a violent man who dislikes Ethan. She thinks you may suspect him. Raymond Turnbull, she says her cottage would go to him – it’s a tied house and he marries on Saturday and needs a roof – but that he wouldn’t have harmed Ethan.’

‘Thank you, Kate.’

‘And Bob Conroy …’

‘We weren’t expecting him.’

‘Mary Jane thinks he still has a soft spot for her. He wanted to marry her before Ethan pushed him out.’

‘I don’t think he need concern us. He has an alibi for Saturday afternoon.’

‘That’s very convenient.’

‘A watertight alibi with two impeccable individuals.’

‘Was one of these impeccable individuals Colonel Ledger?’

‘You won’t expect me to confirm or deny that.’

‘Conroy has sold the farm to the colonel.’

‘That wouldn’t have a bearing on the case.’

‘There’s something going on, Marcus, and it makes me think that this solicitor, the Ledgers’ solicitor, isn’t going to look out for Mary Jane’s interests.’

‘Why do you think that?’

I did not tell him. If there was dirt to be uncovered then I would have to do some shovelling. ‘Marcus, I did as you asked. I observed Mary Jane, I told you her reactions. Let me ask you something in return.’ I came as close to him as if we were about to make love, looking into his eyes, almost touching his body with mine. ‘You needn’t say yes or no, but if I am right, just let me know in some other way, a nod …’

‘Or a wink,’ he said half jokingly, scratching his neck under the stiff collar, not knowing what I was about to ask.

‘Or a wink. Someone reported on Ethan’s political activities, meetings he attended, people he met. Someone said how the vote went when a strike was called. The guess would be that information came from a member of the quarrymen’s union, but I think it came from Bob Conroy. Bob and Ethan went to the same political meetings. Ethan spent his spare time helping on the farm. He confided in Bob. And Bob betrayed him. Am I right?’

Marcus discovered an itch on his face and scratched the side of his nose. He lowered his head. ‘You wouldn’t expect me to confirm or deny that.’

He had confirmed it.

We stood a tissue paper apart. For a moment, I thought he would step back, or embrace me, but he did neither. I held my ground and waited.

‘I’ll tell you this much, Kate, Conroy is distraught over Armstrong’s death. Utterly distraught.’

‘I can hear the thirty pieces of silver clinking as he flings them into the gutter.’

‘He was acting from the best of motives, to save Ethan from himself, and from exploitation by men who do not have the good of our country at heart.’

He caught my hand as I turned to go. ‘I’m booked into the Red Lion, but if you’d like me to come to you tonight …’

‘Best not come to me, Marcus. But thanks for telling me where to find you.’ I should have left it at that but I had to say it. ‘Miss Trimble was poisoned because of something she knew. Bob Conroy was in the village that afternoon, supposedly posting letters to comrades. He was in the churchyard when I came from the vicarage. He’d spoken to Miss Trimble on Sunday and was going to make a donation to the church.’

‘There were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Miss Trimble’s death.’

‘Country doctors never want suspicious circumstances. How many unexplained deaths are passed off that way because it’s easier for all concerned?’

‘What possible reason would Conroy have for killing her? Only one that I can think of and that’s because she claims to have seen a person answering Mrs Armstrong’s description by the quarry. That wouldn’t help your case at all.’

Marcus insisted on walking me back to my car. ‘Thank you for coming, Kate. I know this must have been difficult for you.’

He expected me to ask if I could stay until after Mary Jane’s interview and was already thinking of some polite way of refusing me. But I would not ask. I wanted to catch Sykes before he left for Great Applewick with his supply of stockings for mill girls.

As I left the police station, a suave gentleman in a grey mohair suit and a bowler hat walked into the courtyard, a minion trotting a few steps behind, carrying a briefcase.

We looked at each other and I guessed who he was. A solicitor employed by the Ledgers would not wear a worn tweed country suit. A solicitor employed by the Ledgers would buy his silk shirts from the top drawer and his suits from Savile Row.

I drew myself up to my full height, and was glad to be wearing a touch of silk of my own, the coffee and cream suit had been a good choice after all. Which one of us would speak first?

I did, because I had nothing to lose and he had nothing to gain. His fee would come from Ledger and to him this was simply another bit of business.

‘Excuse me.’

‘Yes?’

‘I believe you’re Mr Nelson, appointed by Colonel Ledger. I’m Mrs Shackleton, a friend of Mrs Armstrong.’

He feigned surprise though I guessed he knew well enough who I was. The colonel would have briefed him thoroughly.

‘If there’s anything I can do to help, Mr Nelson …’

He raised his hat. ‘Bad business,’ he said as if commenting on a rainy day spoiling play. ‘But worry not, my dear lady. I shall have Mrs Armstrong out of here in no time.’

Stupidly, I felt myself light up at this unexpected show of support. ‘I’m glad to hear that because she wants to be home with her children.’