Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses (38 page)

As the door closed softly, though, I got and gave the most tremendous shock, for Fleur’s little room, cold and bare, was not empty. Betty Alder, Sabbatina Aldo, was lying full-length on the narrow bed, sobbing her heart out into the pillow, and she leapt to her feet with a shriek (matching my own) when she saw me.

‘Sabbatina?’ I said, recovering first. ‘What’s the matter, and what are you doing in here?’

She had clearly been crying for quite some time: her eyes were swollen half-shut and her nose was swollen too and reddened from blowing. Her beautiful olive skin was blotchy and her raven curls were plastered damply to her forehead and neck.

‘I can’t bear to be with the others today,’ she said. ‘My mother and father didn’t come. I saw my father yesterday and I . . . told him things. I think I drove him away.’

‘But you didn’t want to see your father,’ I reminded her. A fresh course of tears slid down her cheeks and she scrubbed at them.

‘I wanted to see my mother,’ she said. ‘Father didn’t tell me she wasn’t coming. I waited and waited in the front hall until everyone else was gone and there was just me standing there.’

‘But Sabbatina, my dear,’ I said, sitting down beside her and rubbing her back (it seemed to be my day for comforting the daughters of uncaring mothers, today). ‘Of course she didn’t come. She’s gone, dear. Oh, poor you! Were you pinning your hopes on her coming back?’ The girl sniffed and blinked.

‘Gone?’ she said. ‘Gone where? Coming back from where?’ I think
I
might have blinked at that.

‘But you knew she was gone,’ I said. ‘We spoke of it.’

‘I didn’t— Gone where, Miss Gilver? My mother? Gone where?’

I stopped rubbing her back and began instead rubbing the bridge of my own nose.

‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘We had at least one conversation about this. And you said to me that you were going to see your father – not your mother – last Saturday.’

‘Yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘I never see my mother on a Saturday. She goes to Dunskey House on that day. You know. Washing.’

‘But who is it you’re missing then?’ I said. ‘Who is it that’s gone and left you? I feel as if I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.’

‘Miss Lipscott,’ the child said, and her voice broke. ‘Miss Lipscott, of course. She’s gone. And I can’t bear it.’ She threw herself back down onto the bed, buried her head in the pillow and howled. I felt quite safe rolling my eyes since she could not see me, but I managed to make my voice kind and calm.

‘My dear girl,’ I said, ‘it’s quite normal to have these overwhelming feelings about one’s mistresses, you know. But you shouldn’t give in to them. Now, sit up and dry your eyes.’

She did sit up then.

‘It’s not a pash, Miss Gilver,’ she said. ‘It’s not a crush. Miss Lipscott took care of me. I thought she was like a sister.’

‘Well, that’s very nice,’ I said, ‘but you really should—’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Sabbatina. ‘Miss Lipscott was my patron. She paid for me to be here. She even said that maybe after I was finished with school I could live with her.’

I stared at her, feeling things shift but still not knowing where they were off to.

‘I was at the village school when I met her,’ she said. ‘She used to walk and I used to walk – on my own, because of all the teasing – and then we walked together and she brought me books and then she started coming down to the house and giving me lessons and she was like one of the family. And then I came here and she said maybe we could all live together. Only, she stopped saying that after a while. And now I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if she ever cared for me at all. But she said I could go up and spend the summer with her. And now she’s gone, Miss Gilver, and I can’t stay at St Columba’s and go to university and I shall be a washerwoman like my mother and—’ She stopped dead. ‘My mother’s
gone
?’

Inside, I groaned to have let it slip out like that.

‘What am I going to do?’ Sabbatina said. ‘How could she go off and leave me?’ And since I quite honestly did not know which one of the two women she meant, I said nothing. Anyway, I was thinking hard. She had just said something that had struck me. ‘What am I going to do, Miss Gilver?’ the girl whispered again. ‘I did something silly and I’m sorry.’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I took her bags. I hid them under my bed, but it’s sheets change day tomorrow and I don’t know what to do.’

‘You sto— You took Miss Lipscott’s bags from the flower room?’ I said.

‘I heard you on the telephone when I came to give Miss Shanks a note,’ said Sabbatina. ‘You said where they were and I – I just wanted something of hers to keep. And there was a letter in her bag and I opened it – even though it wasn’t for me – and now everything’s spoiled. And my mother’s gone too?’

‘Quick,’ I said, ‘while they’re still at luncheon. Let’s go and get the bags and bring them here. I want to read this letter, to see if there’s anything to tell us where she might be.’

‘There isn’t,’ she said. ‘It’s just a horrible, sordid letter that spoiled everything.’ She sniffed. ‘Are you sure she didn’t go home?’ I nodded. ‘Do you think she’s all right? I still care, even after everything.’ I gave a firm nod with nothing behind it except wishful thinking, and then together we slipped out of the room to flit up the stairs and along the passages to Sabbatina’s little dorm.

‘Of course, this is very wrong,’ I said, somewhat belatedly, when we had got the bags back to Fleur’s room again and Sabbatina had put the letter in its envelope into my hands, ‘but sometimes we have to do things of which we’d ordinarily be ashamed.’

‘I’m not ashamed,’ she said. ‘At least, I’m only ashamed for Miss Lipscott and I’m ashamed of thinking she loved me.’

‘I’m sure she did,’ I said. Sabbatina nodded to the envelope.

‘Read it, Miss Gilver, and then tell me.’ I looked down and my eyes widened. It was addressed to
Sr Giuseppe Aldo
. ‘Miss Lipscott wrote a letter to my father every week,’ said Sabbatina. ‘I usually took it to him. I thought she was letting him know how I was getting on and all that. I put it right into his hands. Every Saturday.’

‘Not to your mother and father together?’ I said.

‘Mother doesn’t read English,’ she said. ‘I want to teach her but she never has time until it’s late and she’s tired. Maybe if I had taught her to read . . . I keep forgetting that you told me she’s gone.’

I frowned a bit then, for how could any upset over a lost English mistress drown out the news that one’s mother had left one? I opened the envelope and drew out the single sheet inside.

Dear Joe
, it began (rather chummily, I thought, but then Joe Aldo did seem to have the knack for making chums. I was sure I had called him that myself in the course of our few short meetings).
First things first
, the letter went on.
Sabbatina’s essay this week was first-rate and her grammar work is coming along wonderfully too. The other mistresses are not fulsome in their praise but I have seen her exercise books and she is near the top of the form in almost everything. I say again, as I have before, that to have such a daughter must be a great blessing and could be the foundation of a very happy life for Rosa and you if you would give up these silly notions of yours
.

Rather peppery, I thought, and read on to see to what silly notions she might be alluding.
I cannot pretend that I do not share your feelings, because you know I do and the few times you overcame my better principles were some of the sweetest moments of my life
. I looked up at Sabbatina, but she had looked away.
But I will never be responsible for coming between a husband and wife. I would not marry you if you divorced Rosa and I will not live in sin
. My head was beginning to reel. Joe Aldo the fish fryer?
I did not seek your affections and I regret not being firmer in my resistance to them in the early days when we were first friends. I am going away from St Columba’s very soon, Joe. I shall continue to pay for Sabbatina’s education and I shall always think fondly of you, her and Rosa and pray for your future happiness as the family, blessed by God and joined in His name, that you are. Goodbye, Fleur Lipscott
.

‘He drove her away, Miss Gilver,’ Sabbatina said. ‘He loved her – not me – and she loved him – not me – but she wouldn’t do wrong and he drove her away. And he drove my mother away too. She must have found out.’

‘Sh, Sabbatina,’ I said, for I was trying to think. ‘Hush, now.’

Fleur was planning to run away from Joe Aldo, who would not stop pursuing her. What had happened to make her abandon the plan and flee, leaving Jeanne Beauclerc behind? I glanced down at the letter again.
I would not marry you if you divorced Rosa and I will not live in sin
.

‘Oh my God,’ I said. If living in sin was out and divorce was out that left only one option. And in my memory I saw Fleur bending over the faceless corpse and whispering ‘Five’. ‘Oh my God,’ I said again. We were sure that No. 5 was not Rosa Aldo, because her own husband had told us so. But if her husband had killed her, then of course he would deny recognising the poor broken thing that his murder had made of her.

‘Sabbatina,’ I said, ‘what “things” did you tell your father when you spoke to him yesterday? Did you tell him you’d read this letter?’

‘No,’ the girl said, ‘but I think he guessed I had, or he guessed that I had found out about him and Miss Lipscott anyway. I told him I blamed him for making her run away.’

‘Did he ask you where she had gone?’ I said.

‘Yes, and I told him I thought she had gone home,’ Sabbatina said. ‘But you told me she hasn’t.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘She hasn’t. Wherever she is, she’s safe. But you said something . . .’ I was searching her face. ‘You said something to me that I didn’t catch hold of but I know it’s important.’

‘What, Miss Gilver?’ she said, looking back at me with equal earnestness.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. Then I took hold of both of her arms. Could a man who had killed his wife kill his child? If Sabbatina had told her father she knew about him and Fleur was she herself in danger now? ‘I’ve got to go, dear,’ I said. ‘And I want you to lock yourself in here and wait until I or the police or . . . someone comes back before you open up.’

‘A mistress?’ said Sabbatina.

‘If it’s Miss Glennie or Miss Lovage,’ I said, ‘then yes. Otherwise just keep quiet until they go away.’ I did not know why I did not trust the others. And I did not know whether the story of Joe and Fleur – a Juliet indeed! – was mixed up in the story of St Columba’s, but I needed Alec and all my wits and I could not have the worry of this child distracting me. ‘Will you be all right?’ I asked her, but she had already taken some article of Fleur’s clothing out of the suitcase and looked as though she were planning to curl up and mourn her lost beloved some more. ‘Good girl,’ I said. ‘Lock the door.’

My run of luck was over: as I left the building by the same side door, I was hailed from a distance and turned to see Miss Shanks pounding towards me.

‘Miss Gilver? Miss Gilver!’ she cried.

‘Can’t stop, Miss Shanks,’ I called back with a wave, and kept going. She could hardly run me down and tackle me in front of all the parents, so she slowed and stopped and I was away from her, pelting over the lawn and down the cliff steps with my mind racing faster than my feet.

Joe killed Rosa, because he thought that then Fleur would marry him. Fleur thought her refusal to marry him while his wife was alive meant that she had Rosa’s blood on her hands. That much made sense. But how could Joe have thought Fleur would marry a murderer? Did he mean to make everyone believe it was suicide? Or an accident? But then why did he not say he recognised his wife when he went to see her? What happened to change his plan that terrible day when I went to the cove with Fleur and Joe went with Alec? And what of the mysterious lover who had been seen with Rosa on the cliff path?

I stopped so suddenly that I nearly tripped and fell off the cliff myself.
He was seen
. That’s what changed. Alec said as much: Joe Aldo was numb with shock at the news that someone had seen his wife and ‘her lover’ and that the witness said she would know the man if she saw him again. After that Joe
had
to say the corpse was a stranger. And then there was the telephone call. I stopped again, but more gradually this time. How could No. 5 be Rosa Aldo when she had rung her husband on the telephone after No. 5’s body had been drowned and nibbled by fishes and washed ashore again?

I came down onto the harbourside and made my way towards the Crown, but was stopped by a piercing whistle from the far harbour wall. Alec waved both his arms at me and I motioned frantically for him to come. He set off towards me at a jog but I could not wait and I sprinted to meet him. He saw me sprint and put on some speed himself so that when we met we were both blowing hard and sweating.

I had brought the letter and I thrust it into his hands.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said when he had finished it.

‘No. 5,’ I panted. ‘Rosa Aldo. Fleur responsible. Joe – pass it off as suicide.’

‘Until little Cissie saw them!’ said Alec.

‘Yes, yes, that’s what I thought,’ I said, recovering my breath. ‘But Alec, Rosa Aldo called her husband on the telephone. I spoke to her myself. Remember?’

‘Nonsense,’ Alec said. ‘You had never met Rosa Aldo. It’s not as though you recognised her voice or anything. You spoke to someone who rang Joe. Someone who spoke a bit of Italian, such as a studious sort would pick up in a couple of years of visiting an Italian family.’

‘
Fleur
?’ I felt a tremor pass through me as though someone had hit an anvil with a hammer close by. ‘It couldn’t be.’

‘Why not?’ Alec said. ‘I never could understand why Joe was so floored by someone supposedly seeing Rosa with her boyfriend, but it makes sense if the boyfriend was him and he was just about to shove her off the cliff top. So it can’t have been Rosa on the telephone. If it wasn’t Rosa, who else?’

‘He must have nerves of steel,’ I said. ‘We were standing right there and Fleur was on the phone and he pretended it was his wife? And she pretended to
be
his wife? Why would she do that?’