Lois Meade 01: Murder on Monday (EN, 2002) (18 page)

Lois shook her head. “No, it wasn’t…I just meant…” She gathered her thoughts swiftly, and added, “Why, Rachel? Was he interested in the jacket?” But Rachel had withdrawn, taken up a vase of flowers and gone rapidly out of the kitchen.

Halfway through the morning, Lois was dusting upstairs in the big bedroom overlooking the drive. She straightened the curtains and saw a police car draw up at the gate. Since nobody seemed to be answering the door, she went quickly downstairs and opened it. “Morning, Inspector,” she said.

The Inspector’s smile was warm. “Good morning, Mrs Meade,” he said. “Is the Professor at home?”

“I’ll get him,” said Lois, but Malcolm had come up behind her.

“Thank you, Lois. I’ll look after the inspector now.” Dismissed, Lois walked slowly back up the stairs, straining her ears to hear what was said.

She managed to catch the tail end of a sentence, just before the sitting room door was slammed shut by Malcolm, “…and so I wonder if you’d mind telling me about that evening once more,” said the Inspector.

∗

“What made you think you’d be the only one to notice those jackets?” said Derek, pushing spaghetti around his plate. “Stands to reason. If an amateur like you can spot a thing like that, it’s a sure thing a professional will notice it, too. They’re highly trained, y’know. PC Plod is a thing of the past. But,” he added, looking at Lois crestfallen face, “he might not have come up with the connection. Not noticed the creosote on that trellis.”

“Bet he has,” said Lois miserably. Still, the whole jacket business might not be all that important. She’d only to find a reason why Malcolm Barratt visited Gloria, and she’d already come up with his oft-declared intention of ‘getting to know the locals’ by taking on the delivery of the village newsletter. And the doctor and the vicar had every reason to be there.

She brooded on this for a while, until Derek said, “Penny for ‘em,” as his fork chased the last piece of pasta across the table.

“Worth more than a penny,” said Lois, thinking quickly. “It’s the boys. They’ll soon both need new shoes.” She got up and kissed the top of Derek’s head, his springy hair tickling her nose. “You’d better get back to work,” she said. “Else we’ll never be able to afford them, the price trainers are these days. They’ll want the latest, of course.”

“Of course,” said Derek. “And as long as I can connect a couple of wires, they shall have the latest.”

∗

The shoe shop was crowded, as always on a Saturday. Most of the customers had helped themselves to a single shoe that took their fancy, and stood about trying to catch the eye of one of the very few assistants. After a long wait, the boys finally had their shoes, and Lois said they could go off for half an hour, but to meet her again by the entrance to John Lewis without fail. Josie had tagged along in the hope of new shoes herself, but Lois had very little money left.

“Next month, Josie,” she said. “Then it’ll be your turn.” They walked up the shopping centre boulevard, and Lois thought funds would stretch to an ice-cream while they waited for the boys. The ice-cream parlour was brilliantly lit. Too bright, thought Lois, to be welcoming. It’s like standing under a spotlight in a torture chamber. She squinted against the whiteness, wondering if they should go somewhere else, when Josie’s voice drew to her attention the tall figure of Melvyn Hallhouse standing in front of them, smiling broadly.

“Hi, Mrs Meade. Hi, Josie. Ice-cream all round? Er…like, it’d be an apology for getting it wrong the other night?”

Josie accepted quickly, before Lois could refuse, and they perched on uncomfortably high stools eating silently. Someone’s got to say something, thought Lois, and wiped her mouth with the paper napkin.

“Josie’s Dad came round, more or less,” she said. “Better not come to the house for a week or two, but after that I reckon it’d be all right…just at weekends.”

Josie beamed at her. “Fine!” she said.

But Melvyn shook his head. “Might not be around for much longer,” he said portentously.

A warm sense of relief flooded Lois, but Josie gasped. “Why? Where’re you going?”

“We might be movin’ away, up north,” said Melvyn. “Dad’s being moved in his job and Mum says where he goes we all go. They’ve sussed out a house to rent already. None of the rest of us want to go, but Dad says he has to be where the work is. Sensible, I suppose.”

Lois agreed quickly, adding that it always took a while to move house, so he’d be sure to be in Tresham for a few weeks yet.

Josie failed to cheer up, and threw her half-eaten ice-cream into the bin. “I’m going to look for the boys,” she said. “See you around, Melv.”

“Oh dear,” said Lois, getting off the stool. “She’s upset, Melvyn, that’s all. I’d better be off after her.” Something made her look back as she walked away from the parlour. Melvyn was watching her, grinning as if he’d just won the lottery. Well, thank God
he
doesn’t look exactly broken-hearted, Lois thought, and hurried on her way.

M
onday morning in Byron Way was chaos, with the boys rushing in different directions looking for homework books, library books, violins, recorders, football boots, coats, scarves, gloves. Josie had shut herself in the bathroom for some unexplained purpose and wouldn’t come out. Lois’s mother stood at the door, saying that if she, at her age, could get herself ready and out of the house, and walk up that steep hill in time to collect everybody, surely the least they could do was be ready.

“Quite right, Mum,” said Derek. “Get a move on, you boys. Your mother has to go to work, and so do I, and poor Gran is getting cold waiting on the doorstep, and – ” he added without pausing for breath but his voice rising several decibels – “Josie Meade! Come down here at once. I don’t care if you’re still in your pyjamas! Serve you right if I made you go to school in them.”

“Derek, that’s enough,” said Lois, and went quickly upstairs. “Is something wrong, Josie?” she said through the bathroom door.

“Nope,” said a tearful voice.

“Let me in, dear,” said Lois. “Better tell me what’s up.” She sat with Josie on the edge of the bath and put her arm round the narrow shoulders. “Now then…”

“It’s today Melvyn’s movin’,” Josie finally croaked. “Shan’t see him no more.”

“
Any
more,” said Lois automatically. “The move’s happened very quickly, hasn’t it?”

“Well, his Dad’s found a place to rent, and it’s empty, so he said no point in waiting. Melv doesn’t want to go…”

“Oh dear,” said Lois, hovering between a wish to comfort her only daughter and pleasure that at least one of their problems would now be solved. She finally got Josie dressed and, despite being rather limp, Josie was now at least dry-eyed. Gran had waited, sensing that her granddaughter might need support. Derek told her sharply to get a move on. Lois made a face at him and encouraged Josie out into the porch.

“There’ll be other fish to fry,” she said cheerfully, knowing as she said it that at Josie’s age there is no such thing as tomorrow, let alone next week or month or year.

∗

Derek was overjoyed when Lois told him. “Good riddance,” he said. “Perhaps Josie’ll concentrate on her school work now.” And perhaps she won’t, thought Lois. There will be others, but none of them will be good enough for Derek’s little girl. Still, we should get a bit of respite now Melvyn’s gone. She pulled on her coat and went out to start her car. The doctor’s house today. As she drove along past leafless trees and bare fields, noisy seagulls driven inland by storms flew up in a curving flock. I could do with a bit of sunshine, a warm beach and blue sea, said Lois to herself. She had been watching a travel programme the previous evening and wished they had enough money for a winter holiday. It’d make spring come all the quicker. “Instead of which,” she said aloud to the small dragon talisman swinging over her windscreen. “I am on my way to clean another woman’s house because she’s too lazy to do it herself.” Her thoughts circled on and as she thought about Mary Rix and her empty days, she wondered again what had happened about the baby they should have had, the one they made a nursery for and kept as a shrine. Time to find out, Lois. You never know what might emerge.

“Morning!” she called as she stepped into the big kitchen, wiping her feet carefully on the mat.

“Ah, there you are, Lois,” said Mrs Rix, as though Lois was already half an hour late. Lois checked with the handsome wall clock, and saw that she was dead on time.

“Punctual to a fault, that’s me,” said Lois, hanging up her coat. “You could set your watch by me, Mrs Rix.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure you’re right,” said Mary Rix. “This morning I’d like you to help me make up the beds in the spare room and then give the whole of upstairs an extra good going over. We have friends coming to stay from Sweden and you know how houseproud
they
are.”

Lois didn’t, but nodded and went to the linen cupboard for sheets and pillowcases. Mary Rix was at her heels and as they passed the firmly shut nursery door, Lois said, “Shall I go round in there with a duster? Freshen it up a bit?”

Mary Rix’s reply was cold. “No thank you,” she said. “No one but myself is allowed in that room.”

“Not even the doctor?” said Lois. “After all, I suppose the baby was his, too?” Oh Lord, that’s gone too far.

Mrs Rix had pulled up short and was glaring at Lois. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said and followed it up with the closest she dared to a reprimand. “I don’t think it has anything to do with you.”

“But Mrs Rix,” said Lois. “I don’t mean any harm,” she continued quietly. For all her reputation, Lois knew when to be gentle. “I’ve worked for you long enough to be trusted, surely? It seems silly if I’m up here with the cleaner and dusters and things not to go in and clean round. I’ll be very careful and you can tell me what’s what.”

There was a long pause, and then Mary Rix’s face crumpled and reddened. “Tell you what’s what?” she said. “I don’t know what
is
what, Lois, and that’s the truth,” she blurted out. “There’s no baby and never will be. I don’t know why I…” Then she was in real tears and Lois opened the nursery door slowly, taking Mary Rix by the hand.

“Show me,” she said. “It’ll not do any harm.”

It was dark in the room and Lois drew back the curtains, noticing prints of yellow sailing boats on a blue and white sea. A weak wintry sun penetrated the room and Lois led Mary Rix to a chair by the small white wicker cradle. “There,” she said. “I’ll just dust round carefully and you can tell me about it. If you want to, that is.”

Lois felt a pang of deep sympathy for Mary Rix as she lifted up fluffy dogs and plastic ducks, dusted underneath, and then moved on to an unused dolls’ house, the door standing open and all the furniture and tiny inhabitants standing inside, waiting.

“You don’t want to hear my sorry story,” began the doctor’s wife.

“I do,” said Lois simply.

Mary Rix hesitated, and then said, “It’s common enough, but still cruel, for all that. I’d tried so many times for a baby and always lost them in the first few weeks. Then it looked hopeful. I got to five months and could feel her kicking. It was a girl, they told me, when – ” she scrubbed her eyes with a handkerchief and pulled herself together – “when I began to lose blood, and finally miscarried. No baby, nothing to show for those weeks of waiting and hoping. No little person to occupy the nursery we’d finally dared to set up. No little girl for Andrew to spoil and cuddle. Only emptiness inside me and between us in this big old house.” She paused and put her hand over her eyes.

The silence became embarrassing, and Lois said, “Didn’t you try again?”

Mary shook her head, sadly. “I was really too old and Andrew wasn’t keen. He said the disappointment was too hard for me to bear, but I think he meant himself as well. Then we didn’t talk about it again. I shut the door on the nursery and didn’t go in for weeks. After that, I started creeping in here when Andrew was out, just to think about that little one who almost made it. I mean, nowadays they can do wonders with premature babies, can’t they?”

Lois quietly opened the window a notch. “Shall we let in some fresh air,” she said. “It’s a bit stuffy in here. Blow the cobwebs away, an’ that.”

Mary Rix sat for a long time as Lois busied herself about the room. Without realising it, Lois was humming and an ordinary sort of calm spread around the room. It was as if time had started again in that room and everyday life had been allowed in.

Mary Rix sighed deeply and stood up. “Lois,” she said, her voice shaky at first, then stronger. “Next week, I want you to help me turn out this room.”

“Oh, but – ”

“No, I mean it. It’s time. We’ll sort out stuff to take to the local hospital’s premature baby unit. I could do with a sewing room, now I’ve taken up patchwork. We had a demonstration at Open Minds and we’re all at it now! Yes, that’s it, that’s what we’ll do.” She smiled at Lois. “You’re a good girl,” she said. “I shan’t forget your kindness. Now I’ll go and put on the kettle and you can carry on as usual.” She put her hand briefly on Lois’s shoulder, and then was gone, her step firm on the stairs.

Lois finished cleaning the sad little room and moved on to the landing. She shut the door, but then changed her mind. “Let’s see if you mean it,” she said softly, and opened it again, leaving a small draught that made the yellow sailing boats dance upon the blue and white summer sea.

∗

“Hello? Oh, it’s you.” Lois, back home as the telephone began to ring, looked round to see if anyone was listening. “What?…Hunter Cowgill again?…Well, I suppose so, but I haven’t got much…Where, then? Round the back of the bike sheds? No, no, it was a joke…Yes, I’m at the nurse’s on Wednesdays…Difficult? Well, I’ll have to think of something. Shall I come to the cottage back door? And will he wear a red carnation so’s I shall recognise – ” Before she had finished her sentence, Keith Simpson had replaced the receiver.

“Who was that?” said Josie, coming through the door with a miserable expression. “Not Melv?”

Lois shook her head. “No, not Melv. Just someone for me. And for goodness sake cheer up, child. You look like something the cat’s brought in.”