Sarge back at the station had said Reg still wouldn’t admit what the row was all about. Why not? Because he didn’t want the content of it to become public knowledge? Or because he knew that it would only make him look more justified in killing her?
Several of the neighbours had said there was gossip about Anne carrying on with Tosh, the landlord of the pub. Maybe that was true, after all he was the only person who claimed Reg was a brute. He needed interviewing again.
Hewitt was just about to wind up his talk with Dulcie when May came into the room.
‘Hello,’ she said with a wide smile. ‘Don’t you want to talk to me too?’
Hewitt hadn’t noticed much about May the previous night, she was sleepy and silent, and as she appeared to have slept through all the action he’d had no real reason to make any kind of assessment about her.
‘I always want to talk to pretty little girls,’ he said with a smile.
‘Have we got to stay here with Granny?’ she asked.
Hewitt glanced at Dulcie while he considered how to answer that question. To his surprise she was giving her sister a filthy look.
‘This is the best place for you both at the moment,’ he said carefully. He wondered if Dulcie’s hostility towards her sister was just at that remark, or whether it was longstanding sibling rivalry.
‘I don’t like being here,’ May said with a pout and without any hesitation clambered on to his knee. ‘The toilet is outside and it’s really scary. Granny hasn’t even got a bath or real lights either.’
‘May!’ Dulcie exclaimed, looking very embarrassed. ‘Granny will hear you and be upset.’
‘I don’t care,’ May said, turning towards Hewitt and snuggling up to his chest. ‘Mummy never liked Granny, she didn’t like us coming here, so why can’t we go somewhere else?’
In a flash of intuition Hewitt realized that he was catching a glimpse of Anne Taylor through her younger daughter. Both girls had inherited her looks, but in the older girl there was nothing of the flirty ‘I’m-gorgeous-so-I-can-do-and-say-what-I-like’ that he’d picked up about the mother from her neighbours. May might be only five, but just the confident way she’d plonked herself down on him and spoken her piece suggested she was used to getting all the attention and intended to keep things that way.
Dulcie was very different. Hewitt sensed that she had worked out exactly what she was going to say to him before he arrived. He felt she had heard at least the last part of the quarrel between her parents, but she’d decided that by repeating it she wouldn’t help her father’s cause. Her loyalty to him was touching, and that in itself proved Reg was no brute.
‘Mummy’s dead, and you’ll stay where Daddy said you’d got to go,’ Dulcie snapped at her sister. ‘And if you say anything else nasty about Granny, I won’t play with you any more.’
May looked stunned for just a moment, but then she turned her face up to Hewitt. ‘She’s just being mean to me because of what Mummy said last night.’
‘What was that?’ Hewitt chuckled. It was impossible not be enchanted by this outspoken little madam.
‘She said,
May’s not your child.
I heard her shout it at Daddy! Dulcie knows that meant she liked me best.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ Dulcie shouted, leaping off her chair and rushing towards her sister to strike her. ‘You didn’t hear anything, you were asleep.’
It was the first time Dulcie had lost her control and in doing so she’d inadvertently slipped up.
Hewitt caught hold of Dulcie’s arm before she hit her sister. He sent May out of the room, then drew Dulcie close to his knee. ‘Don’t be upset by what she said, of course it didn’t mean your mummy liked her best.’
‘Mummy did like her best,’ Dulcie said, looking right into his eyes. ‘I didn’t mind, everyone likes May because she’s cute. I was only cross with her because she didn’t really hear anything, she just made that up to get your attention.’
Hewitt felt like pulling her into his arms for a cuddle, the way he would his own children, but he sensed this prickly little girl would reject him. May had undoubtedly heard her mother make that statement, and in her innocence of what it really meant, she had let in a shaft of light on the whole sorry business. He very much doubted that Dulcie understood the remark any better than May, but he knew by her swift reaction she’d heard it said too, probably along with a great deal more which hadn’t registered with May.
‘One of my daughters is a bit like May,’ he said, hoping to gain her trust. ‘She’s nearly eighteen now, but when she was little she used to hog the limelight all the time, my other children called her “Twinkle” because of it. I think they all thought she was her mother’s and my favourite, but she wasn’t, parents don’t have favourites, they like each of their children equally, but for different things. I expect your parents valued you for being clever, loyal and very caring to your little sister.’
Dulcie shrugged and stepped back from him. ‘Can I go now? May’s bound to be making something else up to Granny.’
Hewitt smiled at her. His respect was growing for this child, she was bright, intuitive and brave. Through talking to her he felt he’d got an insight into her father’s character. His gut reaction was that the man hadn’t killed his wife, it was just an accident.
Chapter Three
It was Tuesday morning before PC Hewitt could get to Leahurst Road to interview the headmistress of Lee Manor, the primary school Dulcie had attended, and to re-interview Albert Bright, known locally as Tosh.
Reg had made a brief appearance at Lewisham Crown Court the previous morning. He pleaded not guilty to murder, and despite an appeal from his solicitor to grant him bail so he could take care of his children, he was remanded in custody and sent to Brixton prison.
Hewitt already knew Miss Willoughby, Lee Manor’s headmistress, as he’d called at the school before after a break-in. He had formed the opinion then that she was a typical middle-class spinster, stern, humourless and very narrow-minded. But as such characteristics usually come along with complete honesty, he was hoping for a fair appraisal of the Taylors as parents.
The first thing that struck him once he’d been seated upstairs in Miss Willoughby’s office was what a worm’s-eye view she had of the Taylors’ flat. There were three schools under the name of Lee Manor – Infants, Primary in the middle, and Senior girls at the end of Leahurst Road. They were basically single-storey buildings, each surrounded by a playground, but each had just a couple of small rooms used as offices set up in the roof. Miss Willoughby’s was right opposite number 294, and had the curtains been open she would have been able to see right in.
The second thing which struck him was her excitement at being so close to a crime scene, she was quivering with it. ‘I had such a shock when I heard about the tragedy yesterday morning,’ she said breathlessly, her eyes gleaming behind her thick glasses. ‘I can hardly bear to think of that lovely woman being hurled down the stairs.’
She was in her fifties, with iron-grey hair cut off abruptly about her ears, a plain, moon-like face, and a stout, bolsterlike body beneath her tweed suit. Not the type of woman Hewitt would normally expect hysterical behaviour from.
‘There is no evidence as yet that she was hurled,’ Hewitt said quickly.
‘Oh, but I’ve heard about the fearful battle they had,’ she insisted. ‘They say she was pleading with him not to hurt her, over and over again.’
‘Who is
they?
’ he asked.
‘Everyone,’ she said, throwing her arms wide as if to encompass the whole street.
‘Miss Willoughby, the facts are that the whole thing happened without anyone hearing anything,’ Hewitt retorted. ‘The lady downstairs did report she was wakened by a thumping noise as if something heavy was falling down the stairs, but that was all. It was Mr Taylor who telephoned the emergency services, and until the ambulance and police came to the street, everyone was sound asleep.’
She seemed momentarily deflated by this. ‘Well, it’s been common knowledge for months now that all wasn’t well with the family Terrible rows two or three times a week, many’s the time Dulcie has come to school with dark circles under her eyes.’
‘Did you ever ask her about them?’
‘In a roundabout way, yes. But of course she’d been drilled by her father not to speak out.’
Hewitt sighed. He could see that he wasn’t going to get an unbiased view from this woman after all.
‘How is Dulcie doing at school?’ he asked.
‘Oh fine, one of the brightest in her class. Excellent reading, way beyond the norm, quick at arithmetic too and exceptionally well-behaved.’
‘Aren’t troubled children usually slow at school?’
‘Sometimes, but that’s not always the case.’
‘I know Dulcie has only been at this school for eighteen months, but have you met both parents?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I interviewed them together when they wanted Dulcie to start here.’
‘That’s rather unusual for the dad to come too, isn’t it?’ Hewitt said. He didn’t think he’d ever been with his wife to any of his children’s schools.
‘Well, he’s a bossy man, isn’t he?’ she said with a sniff. ‘I doubt he trusted his wife to come alone. I knew right away they were a disaster in the making. He was so common and rough, a frightful accent too. She was a real lady, beautifully groomed, well-spoken and well-educated.’
Hewitt groaned inwardly at this snobbishness.
‘Did you see either of them after that interview?’
‘Yes, on parents’ evenings, they both came at first, but recently it was only him. I never spoke to him of course, that’s the teachers’ job.’
‘So you only spoke to either of them the once?’
‘Oh no, I spoke to Mrs Taylor at the first carol service after Dulcie started here, she was an angel in the Nativity play. I spoke to
him
several times. He was the most extraordinary man.’
‘In what way?’
‘He would come here to fuss,’ she said, folding her arms on her chest. ‘The first time was about a year ago. Dulcie fell over in the playground and he wanted to know why her knees hadn’t been cleaned and dressed. I said I imagined it was because she hadn’t asked for them to be. He had the cheek to tell me that I had a duty to all the children in my care and they should be attended to after an accident whether or not they asked for it. He said even grown men in the army got looked after when they were hurt, and so should a little seven-year-old.’
Hewitt agreed with Reg entirely on that matter, but he just raised an eyebrow as if he was taking Miss Willoughby’s side.
‘And then,’ she said with a gasp, ‘in February he came marching in here one morning and asked why I hadn’t done anything when I knew both his girls were standing on the doorstep in the snow for over an hour the day before. I ask you! As if it’s my place to check every child gets into its home after school!’
Hewitt glanced out of the window and saw the front door of number 294 and wondered how anyone, particularly a teacher, could see two children standing there shivering and not go over to ask where their mother was.
‘What did you say to that?’ he asked.
‘That the children were only my concern until four o’clock. He was so rude to me, accused me of being heartless and it was no thanks to me they hadn’t died of the cold. It was around that time I heard about all the rows going on over there. I felt so sorry for that poor woman, living with a brute like that.’
PC Hewitt had heard enough for one day. He sincerely hoped that whoever was sent by the Welfare to investigate the suitability of Maud Taylor as the children’s guardian wouldn’t take any advice from this appalling snob.
He thanked her for her help and asked if he could speak briefly to Dulcie’s teacher. She rather curtly reminded him teachers couldn’t be interrupted in their work and asked that he come back in the lunch-hour.
Within ten minutes of talking to Albert Bright the second time around, Hewitt knew he’d definitely been Anne’s lover. Bright had been shocked by the news of her death the first time he called, he was hung over from the night before, and he looked rough. Even though Hewitt had been told of the gossip about him and Anne before that first interview, he couldn’t take it seriously because it seemed impossible that such a lovely young woman would entangle herself with someone so repulsive.
But this time Bright was shaved, cocky and full of himself. He took Hewitt up to his sitting-room on the first floor, offered a glass of whisky which was refused, then poured himself a very large one.
‘Call me Tosh,’ he insisted. ‘I can’t be doing with all that Mr Bright.’ He sat down on his plump velvet couch like an Eastern potentate. ‘Anne and I were mates. She used to tell me all ‘er troubles. Reg didn’t like ‘er working fer me. ‘E’s the sort that likes ‘is woman barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, know what I mean? I used to tell ‘er about me boxing days, the clubs and all that, we’d ‘ave a drink or two and she’d cheer up.’
He kept saying what a looker she was, how she brightened up the bar, and how Reg ought to have appreciated her more. Then Hewitt asked him point-blank if they’d become lovers.
‘What!’ Tosh exclaimed. ‘Do you really reckon someone as gorgeous as ‘er would go with an old geezer like me?’
‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ Hewitt said, intending to rile the man. ‘But then Reg Taylor is no oil painting either, and ten years older than Anne.’
‘Reg’s a wanker,’ Tosh muttered.
‘You knew him then?’ Hewitt said.
‘He came in for the odd pint now and then,’ Tosh replied. ‘When ‘e first moved ‘ere we used to talk sometimes, but ‘e weren’t my sort of bloke. Typical bloody army type. You know what I mean.’
Hewitt guessed that meant Reg took a dim view of able-bodied men who hadn’t joined up during the war. Several neighbours in the street had mentioned that Tosh evaded subscription and bought this place with black market money. ‘Did he come in here with Anne?’
‘Hardly ever, only if they’d got a babysitter and were out fer the evening. If he’d taken ‘er out more maybe it wouldn’t ‘ave come to this. She were the kind fer the bright lights.’
‘So how did she come to work for you then?’