Shades of Murder (39 page)

‘Not as such,’ he qualified his statement. ‘She asked to see me, as it happens, so I went along. There’s nothing wrong with her brain,’ he added to Juliet. ‘She’s perfectly coherent, clear as a bell – OK as far as her mind goes. But you’ve got to remember, she has broken ribs and a broken ankle. The problem is, broken bones are one thing. A broken spirit is another. If you ask me, she’s . . .’ Minchin paused, seeking a phrase. ‘She’s calling it a day, if you know what I mean.’

‘Oh, this won’t do at all!’ cried Pam. ‘Obviously she’s in shock and depressed. She needs someone to cheer her up. When you and Juliet go tomorrow, Meredith, you must—’

‘She hasn’t got the strength,’ Minchin interrupted. ‘Not physically, not mentally.’

‘You said her mind was all right,’ argued Juliet.

‘So it is. But she can’t cope with the future, whatever it is. Too much trouble. So she’s decided to tidy up the loose ends and call it a day.’

‘But for Damaris’s sake!’ Juliet wasn’t giving up.

Minchin said to her, his voice surprisingly gentle, ‘No.’

Juliet flushed and sat back in her chair, looking troubled.

There was an awkward silence. Geoff turned from his fiery furnace, fork in hand, resembling a slightly harassed devil. He cleared his throat and asked diffidently, ‘I suppose it’s not in order to ask what she had to say to you?’

Minchin hesitated but Alan Markby said, ‘Tell them, Doug. They won’t be satisfied until they know.’

Minchin shrugged and turned his attention to Meredith. ‘Your ideas tallied with ours.’

‘You mean I was right?’ Meredith asked politely.

That got her a fishy look. ‘Tallied with ours,’ repeated Minchin heavily. ‘I expect you’ve heard that Kenny Joss saw Jan apparently hiding something behind the kitchen dresser? And that he told Florence?’

They all nodded. The unattended barbecue spat but this time no one paid it any attention.

‘Well, off she went to take a look,’ continued Minchin. ‘She found a jar of savoury spread, open and half-used. She recognised it, she says, as the one they’d been using because there was a dent in the tin lid. When she looked in the upper cupboard of the dresser, lo and behold, she found another jar, but this one had no dent in the lid. It was open and half the contents had been scooped out making it look like the original jar. She didn’t know what Jan was up to but she decided it was no good. She didn’t want to worry her sister, so she said nothing and switched the jars back, meaning to throw away later the one she suspected Jan of planting. But she didn’t get a chance. Damaris came into the kitchen as she was about to replace the jar with the dented lid (the good jar as we now know it to be). Having been caught with it in her hand, Florence made the excuse that she was about to prepare their tea.

‘Jan put in an appearance shortly after that but didn’t stay long. He went off to watch telly until it was time for him to go to The Feathers. In order to keep out of his way, the sisters stayed in the kitchen, preventing Florence retrieving the bad jar from behind the cupboard. They didn’t move to the sitting room until Jan had left, and by then
it was getting late. Well, late by their standards!’ Minchin permitted himself a brief grin. ‘So Florence decided to leave disposing of the suspect jar until the next day. Unfortunately for Jan, he was unaware of this and when he had returned from The Feathers and was satisfied the sisters had gone to bed, he switched the jars back again. So now the poisoned one was back in the cupboard and Jan had tucked away the good one behind the dresser as he’d done originally. As far as he was concerned, he was satisfied the sisters had eaten the poisoned one. He expected them to become ill. Got a bit too clever and managed to outsmart himself!’ Minchin informed them with satisfaction. ‘He decided to make himself a snack using what he believed to be the good jar and was hoist with his own petard, as the saying goes. If he’d go the dose right, he might not have died. But he got it wrong. He was a lad with a lot of ideas, was Jan. But he slipped up in putting them into effect. I’ve met a lot of crooks like that.’

‘I don’t feel a bit sorry for him!’ declared Pam Painter robustly.

‘Meredith does,’ Juliet accused.

‘No, I don’t!’ Meredith denied indignantly. ‘I admit, I did feel a bit sorry for him when he first turned up, but not very sorry, not even then.’

‘I never felt sorry for him,’ riposted Juliet.

‘Excuse me,’ Alan said mildly, ‘I don’t think Doug’s finished.’

Everyone looked at Minchin. ‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘But nearly, so you girls can start pulling each other’s hair in a minute.’ He ignored their reaction to this and went on, ‘Well, that’s about it, really. The poor old lady was shaken to the core when Jan dropped dead that selfsame night. She guessed what had happened, realised her failure to dispose of the suspect jar had been the cause of it, and thought she’d be accused of poisoning him. She crept downstairs in the early hours when her sister was asleep, switched the jars back again and took the poisoned jar to her room where she hid it at the back of the wardrobe. She didn’t know at that stage
what
was in it, naturally.’

‘Did she throw it away?’ demanded Meredith. ‘Can you retrieve it? Have you any idea where it is?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Minchin. ‘It’s under a couple of tons of rubble. She couldn’t think of any safe way of disposing of it. She was in a complete panic and not thinking clearly at all. She reckoned, if she put it in the dustbin, Damaris might see it. If she buried it in the garden, that gardener of theirs might dig it up. In the end, she left it where it was in the wardrobe and it went up with everything else in the explosion.’

‘And the arsenic?’ Geoff asked suddenly. ‘Have you found that?’

Minchin shook his head. ‘Probably Jan hid it about the house and it’s gone up with the rest.’

Markby said nothing. He was thinking of all those toiletries on Jan’s dressing table. Swop the arsenic for the contents of a jar of bath salts, get rid of the empty bottle in a bottle bank in town? That’s what I’d do, he thought. Had SOCO checked when they’d made a sweep of the room? I should’ve thought about that, he told himself angrily. That very first morning when I heard of his death, I should’ve removed every damn bottle and tin from that bedroom! If I had, I might’ve sewn this up before Minchin and Hayes set foot in Bamford. But I didn’t do it. Winsley was right to send for someone else. I had too much sympathy for the Oakleys. I didn’t want to distress them. It made me slapdash.

‘Let’s hope so,’ Geoff was saying grumpily. ‘The stuff blown to smithereens and dispersed about the landscape suits me just fine. I don’t want Fuller sending me any more body organs, not for a while, anyway.’ He brightened, ‘All ready here! Who’s for a pork chop?’ He waited. ‘Well, don’t all rush at once.’

Guiltily, they proffered their plates.

‘Perhaps,’ said Pam, poking a blackened sausage, ‘Geoff will lose interest in that barbecue soon.’

After the spell of fine weather, the following day was overcast and cool. Meredith parked in the hospital visitors’ car park and she and Juliet set out towards the main building in silence. Both were apprehensive as to what they’d find.

As they neared the doors, Juliet murmured, ‘Perhaps Doug Minchin is wrong.’ But she didn’t sound as though she held much hope of this.

‘Miss Oakley is in a private room,’ the nurse told them brightly.

Both visitors looked at her startled and then at each other as they followed her down the corridor.

‘Who’s paying for it?’ whispered Meredith.

Juliet only shook her head in bewilderment.

‘Here we are!’ announced the nurse. ‘Now, you won’t stay long, will you? She’ll be pleased to have visitors but she tires very quickly. Ten minutes, all right?’

The room was small but pleasant. Several people seemed to have sent Florence flowers but to Meredith’s mind, instead of giving a cheerful aspect to the room, the impression was more of a funeral. Florence lay propped up in bed. The television was on, facing the end of the bed so that she could see it, but she didn’t appear to be watching. It was some
morning chat show or other featuring a row of people on a virulently hued overstuffed sofa. For all her injuries, Florence looked quite pink and well, her white hair braided into a single plait which hung over her shoulder. With shock, Meredith thought,
This is how Juliet will look when she’s old, like this
.

Juliet had gone to the bed and stooped to kiss Florence’s brow. ‘We’ve brought you some grapes, Florence, and some fruit juice.’

‘How very kind,’ Florence said, and it was when she spoke that Meredith knew what Doug Minchin had meant. Florence’s voice was polite but detached. Her smile too had a mechanical air about it, as if voice and muscles were all working, but the person behind them wasn’t there.

They seated themselves by the bedside, Juliet said earnestly, ‘You’ve got to buck up, Florence. You’ve got to think of Damaris.’

‘Damaris is very capable.’ Again that polite detachment. ‘She was always so much more sensible than I ever was. I always did foolish things. I always had ideas but never managed to think them through.’ For a moment emotion entered her voice but it was a kind of bewilderment, as if Florence spoke about someone else. She turned her head on the pillow and regarded them as if they held the answer.

‘We all do silly things from time to time, Florence,’ Meredith said. She guessed that Florence was thinking of her actions with the jars of savoury spread which had led to Jan’s death.

She was right. Florence said carefully, ‘I didn’t mean to kill Jan.’

‘You didn’t kill him – that is, he was responsible. He tampered with the contents of the jar and he made himself the – the sandwich.’ Meredith had almost said ‘fatal sandwich’ but that would have been tactless.

Florence wouldn’t have been bothered if she had said it. She looked a little put out as if Meredith had questioned her word. ‘I changed the pots,’ she said pettishly. ‘That’s why he died.’

‘No, Florence,’ Juliet said. ‘That’s why you and Damaris lived. Don’t you see that? You saved Damaris’s life and your own. It was a good thing you exchanged the jars.’

Florence’s gaze had grown absent. ‘You see how silly it all is? I didn’t mean to kill
him
but he died, anyway. Isn’t it odd how things turn out the same way whether you mean them to or not? If I try and kill someone he dies and if I don’t, he still dies. Perhaps that’s Fate. Or do I mean predestination? No, I don’t think I do. I think I mean what Damaris always calls bad luck.’

‘She’s confused,’ whispered Juliet. ‘First she says she didn’t mean it,
now she’s saying she did. I hope Doug Minchin realised how muddled she is.’

But Meredith said quietly, ‘No, I don’t think she is.’

‘Now you’re not making sense,’ Juliet began, but was interrupted by Florence’s low clear voice.

‘Have you seen the vicar? I asked him to call.’

‘If you sent for James, he’ll be on his way,’ Juliet promised.

‘I want to tell him all about it. It’s very important that I tell him.’

‘You’ve told Superintendent Minchin and so you don’t have to worry about it any more,’ Juliet insisted.

Again Florence looked tetchy. ‘No, I didn’t. I want to tell the vicar.’

‘He’ll be here, Florence – oh!’ Meredith looked up in relief at the sound of heavy footfall. ‘He’s here now.’

James Holland’s bulky frame filled the doorway. Meredith got to her feet and Juliet followed suit. James approached the bed as quietly as he could and whispered, ‘Good morning. How is she?’

‘She’s got something on her mind,’ Meredith said before Juliet could speak. ‘She wants to tell you something, I’m sure.’

Juliet looked from the occupant of the bed to Meredith and back again. Then she said gently to Florence, ‘As James is here, Meredith and I will go now. But we’ll come back tomorrow.’

‘That would be very nice,’ said Florence in that chillingly blank way.

‘What do you make of it?’ Juliet asked urgently as they left the hospital building.

‘I don’t know, but it’s not our business. Whatever it is, it’s between her and her God. That’s why she wants James,’ Meredith said firmly.

Juliet looked unhappy but didn’t argue.

Meredith asked, ‘When are you going back to London? I thought you could come over and have dinner with us, or better still, considering my cooking, we could all go out somewhere.’

‘Thanks, but it’ll have to wait. I’m going back to London this afternoon, right now. I’ve called in here to check on Florence which is what I wanted to do.’ Juliet hesitated. ‘I’ve got to go because I have a date in Town this evening.’

‘Oh?’ Meredith wondered whether she was to be told the name of Juliet’s swain.

Red in the face, Juliet said, ‘I’m going out for a meal with Doug.’

‘Doug? You mean Minchin, as in Superintendent Minchin?’ Meredith stopped in her tracks in the middle of the car park and stared at her companion.

‘You don’t have to sound so surprised,’ said Juliet huffily. ‘Dorothy Parker wasn’t entirely right about girls who wear glasses, I told you so. Although,’ she added in a burst of honesty, ‘Doug doesn’t like mine. Still, he’ll have to get used to them, won’t he?’ Juliet considered the point. ‘I mean, I don’t like his shirts.’

James Holland had taken his seat by the bedside. ‘Are you in pain, Florence?’

‘No.’ She moved her head on the pillow in a negative gesture. ‘They gave me pills for that.’

‘Good. I was going to come and see you, anyway, but I believe you asked for me. I came over straight away and failed to bring you any flowers or fruit, but you seem pretty well provided for in that line.’

‘Yes.’ Florence moved one frail hand, nothing but bone and skin, discoloured by dark bruises. ‘I need to tell you about him.’

‘About Jan?’

‘Jan?’ For a moment Florence appeared to have forgotten who Jan was. Then she rallied. ‘No, not Jan. I mean my father.’

‘Ah . . .’ said Father Holland. ‘I know a little about that. Alan told me. He saved up his sleeping pills and – er – took them all at once.’

‘No, he didn’t,’ said Florence pettishly. ‘That’s just where you’re wrong. He didn’t save them up. I did.’