Dead In The Morning (11 page)

Betty saw him coming and stuck her fork in the ground. She wiped her hands on her skirt and stepped out of the border on to the grass. She wore short Wellington boots and patterned stockings that had caught on brambles and were laddered.

“I know, don’t tell me, you’re another policeman,” she said, rubbing a hand over her forehead and leaving a grimy mark. “Two were here this morning.”

“I’m not a policeman, Mrs Ludlow,” Patrick said. “I’m Patrick Grant, the Dean of St Mark’s.”

“Oh God! What’s happened now?” said Betty, and her face turned white. If he had not put out a hand to steady her, Patrick thought she might have stumbled. “It’s Tim. Where is he?”

“Isn’t he here?” asked Patrick. “I came to see him, as I’m staying in the neighbourhood.”

“You mean he’s all right? He hasn’t got into trouble again?”

“As far as the university is concerned, I know of nothing wrong,” Patrick said. “My visit is merely social. I apologise if I startled you. Of course, I’ve heard about the sad event in Winterswick. I’ve met your niece.”

“You must think me very silly, Dr Grant,” said Betty, able to speak more calmly now that her immediate panic had been dispelled. “I felt sure Tim must be in trouble of some sort.”

He is, thought Patrick, but his mother need not know about it yet. The apprehensive devotion which Betty Ludlow clearly felt for her worrying child was no new manifestation to Patrick.

“We’ve never met when you’ve been visiting Timothy at Mark’s,” he prompted her.

“No, we haven’t. Oh, how rude of me, do come into the house, Dr Grant,” Betty said, recollecting herself.

“Well, if you’re sure I won’t be interrupting,” Patrick said, with every intention of doing just that.

“Not at all. It will do me good to stop,” said Betty. “I find gardening such a relaxation, don’t you?”

This was a contradictory statement, and anything less relaxed than her own late occupation it would be hard to find, Patrick thought.

“I’m afraid I don’t do much of it,” he said. “But you must let me show you the Fellows’ Garden when you come to Mark’s next term; we have some very rare autumn-flowering shrubs.”

“I’d like that,” Betty said vaguely. She was not really listening.

She led the way into the house, apologising for taking him in by the back door, and paused in the lobby to shed her boots, exchanging them for a pair of shabby pumps.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she offered.

Patrick thought she needed one herself, as shock treatment, and making it would help to soothe her, too. His plan of action for the next half-hour was one his sister would deplore. He grinned to himself, thinking of her reaction. Betty took him into the sitting-room and settled him down with the
Daily Mail
while she went to put the kettle on.

Left alone, Patrick at once got to his feet and inspected the room. It was large and comfortable, with shabby, well-worn chairs and a big, loose-cushioned sofa. There was no book in sight. Some knitting lay on a table, and there were photographs on the mantelpiece and on a large oak dresser by one wall. Patrick recognised Tim in adolescence, and more recently, before he grew his hair and adopted sideboards. There was another boy, too, a fairer, slimmer young man with a sensitive, anxious face; this one was like his mother. A second one of him, a wedding picture, showed him smiling with self-conscious pride beside his bride outside a church. Poor boy, no wonder he looked embarrassed; Patrick, well accustomed though he was to pageantry in Oxford, and to processing through the streets in his cap and doctor’s robes of blue and scarlet, nevertheless considered any man who underwent the ordeal of the Church of England wedding ceremony in full regalia to be a hero. He was still looking at this photograph when Betty returned with a tea tray.

“Your other son?” he asked. “He’s very like you.”

“Oh, do you think so?” Betty was pleased. She put the tray on a low coffee table and they both sat down. “Yes, that’s Martin. He’s been married just over a year.”

“What a very pretty girl,” said Patrick.

“She’s a model. She’s kept her job on,” Betty said, rather sadly, for unreasonably she had expected to become an instant grandmother. “They live in Chelsea. I’m sure she needn’t work. Martin does quite well. He’s with an advertising firm.”

“Most young wives carry on with their jobs these days until they have a family,” Patrick said. “It’s sensible. They get bored otherwise.”

“I suppose so,” Betty said. She had become pregnant with Martin on her honeymoon, and those early years after the war had been a nightmare of contriving, with food, soap and clothing all rationed; it was a time when anxiety and overwork went hand-in-hand with motherhood, so different from today when parents could enjoy their babies.

“I expect you often see them?” Patrick asked.

“No, we don’t,” Betty said. “They’re busy. They have their own friends. They don’t come down to Sunday lunch at Pantons any more, I’m sorry to say. My mother- in-law has been very distressed about it. Old people mind these things.”

“And Tim is away from home? I thought Cathy said he had come back from his holiday?” Patrick inquired.

“He got home on Saturday evening, but he went away again yesterday,” Betty said. “I don’t know where to,” she added bleakly. How to explain the emotion that she felt, half fear for Tim, and half afraid of him, with his moods and his withdrawals? But there seemed to be no need; Dr Grant appeared to be a very understanding man.

“They’re secretive at that age,” he said. “Wrapped up in themselves, and thoughtless. I shouldn’t worry.”

“No,” said Betty doubtfully. It was vain advice; one could as well attempt to stop the tides.

“You said the police were here this morning?” Patrick felt that confidence had been established now and he could start to probe. “That’s a sad business. Poor woman.”

“Did you know that they think she may not have died a natural death?” said Betty, shuddering. Talking to Dr Grant so frankly was not indiscreet; he seemed like an old friend. “It seems some of my mother-in-law’s sleeping pills have disappeared. Yet I should never have thought Mrs Mackenzie the suicidal type.” She felt a sudden compulsion to confide in him. “The police are being very thorough. They want statements from us all about when we saw her last, and when we’d all been to Pantons.”

Was this why Tim had disappeared, wondered Patrick, or was it for another reason ?

“When did you last see her, Mrs Ludlow?” he asked aloud.

“On Friday. My mother-in-law rang me up that afternoon while Mrs Mackenzie was upstairs in her room and Phyllis was in Fennersham, and then my husband and I went round in the evening to welcome Gerald, that’s my brother-in-law, and his wife back from their honeymoon. Oh, isn’t it sad? We should all be happy now, for Gerald, instead of sad about Mrs Mackenzie.” And frightened. In an obscure way that she could not define Betty was frightened about Mrs Mackenzie’s death.

“It’s very unfortunate,” said Patrick. “She seemed quite well that night?” Better to go along with the suicide idea until the alternative was admitted.

“Oh yes,” said Betty. “But then, people are deceptive.”

Indeed they are, thought Patrick, even you, guileless though you seem. I wonder if the police noticed that you are terrified?

While Betty went on thinking that Patrick was a delightful, sympathetic man, he drew from her, bit by bit, an account of what had passed during her interview with Inspector Foster.

The inquest was opened on Tuesday and adjourned for a week. Patrick sat at the back of the village school which was used for the proceedings, watching while Mrs Mackenzie’s son Alec, a thin, pale young man with a stunned expression, gave evidence of identification. Phyllis Medhurst was present, soberly dressed in a grey suit and subdued feather hat, and both her brothers, but not their wives; afterwards the three conferred together in the school playground, watched interestedly over the wall by some of the pupils who were enjoying this unexpected day’s holiday. Alec Mackenzie left the building with a young man whom Patrick recognised at once from his photograph as Martin Ludlow; after a few words with the older members of the family, the group broke up; Derek Ludlow patted his son on the shoulder and they all separated to their cars which were parked in the lane outside the school. Patrick got into his Rover and sat there lighting his pipe while Martin drove off in a dark Vauxhall Viva, with young Mackenzie as his passenger.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Patrick to himself as he drove slowly back to Reynard’s.

The fine weather had broken and a gentle rain was falling. After lunch Jane and Andrew had a date at the clinic; she might be away some time, Jane said, as she might go back for a cup of tea with one of the other mothers. Patrick settled down for an afternoon’s work with his papers. It was intriguing to speculate on what had motivated people’s actions centuries ago: much the same things as drove on their successors now, he thought, greed, envy, lust. He soon found his mind wandering away from Chipping Campden towards Pantons and the mystery there.

At three o’clock the front doorbell rang, and when Patrick answered it he found standing on the step Inspector Foster, whom he had seen at the inquest earlier, and his red-haired Sergeant.

“Dr Patrick Grant?” inquired the Inspector.

“Yes,” Patrick said. “What can I do for you, Inspector? Will you come in?”

He led the way into Jane’s sitting-room, and removed a rattle and a small woolly duck from a chair so that the Inspector could sit down. “My nephew’s he explained, and sat down opposite after finding another chair for the Sergeant.

“This will be your sister’s house, I believe? Mrs Conway?” asked the Inspector.

“That is correct,” said Patrick.

“I’m making some inquiries into the death of Mrs Joyce Mackenzie,” said the Inspector. “There are one or two points you may be able to help me with.”

“I am at your service, Inspector,” Patrick said.

“You were at the inquest, were you not?” the Inspector asked.

“I was. A sad business.”

“Yes. A shock for the lady’s son, I’m afraid. He’s taken it hard.”

“A shock for everyone,” Patrick suggested. “But perhaps in your job you become inured to these things?”

“To some extent,” said the Inspector guardedly. “It depends upon the circumstances. When it’s a youngster - never.” He cleared his throat and rattled his papers. “Well now, sir,” he said. “I believe you went up to the Stable House on Saturday evening. Will you tell me how that came about, please ?”

“Certainly, Inspector. I went to Pantons, too, and met the deceased lady,” Patrick said. He watched to see if this was news to the Inspector.

“Did you? Please tell me what occurred,” said the Inspector with a poker face.

“I was collecting for charity,” Patrick explained. “I went up on behalf of my sister, who had been round the rest of the village. I had met Miss Cathy Ludlow, whose cousin, Timothy Ludlow, is a member of my college. I went to Pantons first, and the door was opened by a woman who must have been the late Mrs Mackenzie. Plump, grey-haired, about fifty. She had very blue eyes and wore a green overall.”

Silently the Inspector handed him a photograph, and Patrick nodded.

“Yes,” he said.

“What time was this?” asked the Inspector.

“About twenty-five past eight, I should say.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No. Mrs Mackenzie disappeared briefly and came back with five shillings, which she gave me, and I left.”

“You waited on the step meanwhile?”

“She invited me into the hall.”

“Did she go upstairs to get the money from her employer, do you think?”

“She did not go up the front staircase. I imagine there is another in a house of that size. But she was not very long.”

“Hm.” The Inspector made a note in his book. “Did you happen to notice that there was an oak chest in the hall?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Patrick, who had stood there noticing everything from the prints on the walls to the state of the barometer during the housekeeper’s absence.

“There were a number of objects on it. Can you recall what any of them were?”

Patrick had always been good at Kim’s game.

“There were some car keys, a pile of books - novels from the library, I should imagine,” he said, knowing very well what they were and all their titles. “Some gloves, a torch, the parish magazine, and a small parcel.”

“You’re very observant, Dr Grant.”

“I try to be,” said Patrick modestly.

“What size was the parcel?”

“Oh, very small. A little paper bag, about two inches square, or less.”

The Inspector took from his pocket a small paper bag printed with the name of the chemist in Fennersham.

“Like this?”

“It could have been. That size, anyway,” Patrick agreed. He sighed. “The fatal pills, eh? Of course I didn’t know then what was in the parcel, so I can’t tell you whether the bottle was half-empty at the time I called, or whether they vanished later. What a pity.”

Jane, of course, had so low an opinion of him that she would have expected him to pry during his brief spell of solitude.

“You seem well-informed about the manner in which Mrs Mackenzie died,” said the Inspector disapprovingly.

“My sister and Cathy Ludlow are friends,” Patrick said. “Cathy was very distressed by this whole business, naturally enough, and she told us what had happened.”

“I see. I hope I can rely on your discretion, Dr Grant?” said the Inspector. “I am anxious to keep this quiet at present. I don’t want the Press down here.”

“I share your anxiety,” Patrick said. “My sister and I only want to help our friends.”

“After Mrs Mackenzie had given you a donation, you went to the Stable House?”

“I did. I must have reached there soon after half-past eight.”

“And who was present?”

“Mr and Mrs Gerald Ludlow, Mrs Medhurst, and Cathy Ludlow,” Patrick said. “They kindly invited me in and gave me a drink as well as some contributions.”

“And you remained there for how long?”

“Oh, about three-quarters of an hour. Perhaps a little longer,” Patrick said. “We had a pleasant time.”