Three Little Maids (8 page)

Maureen wasn’t academically bright but she had been careful in her wording. It took Kent some time to read the tiny neat lettering and she used initials rather than using full names. She’d trusted Susan not to understand it, but her mother had and was obviously disturbed at its contents.

On reading it, Kent was surprised to discover that even he could still be shocked. Was she lying or merely fantasizing? They would never know now. Perhaps it was her upbringing at home? Having so strict a parent as Mr. Carey had definitely not helped Maureen in her formative teen years.

Either the girl was very imaginative or she fancied a large number of men. Most of them were much older than her but she mentioned Michael Berkley a number of times. And Raymond figured in it a great deal
, in explicit terms, and her thoughts on what she liked to do with him. On reflection, Kent thought he could do with a blue pencil. The language the girl used in it wasn’t taught in school. He wondered again whether he should hand it over to her family but to save them more grief, after it was kept for official use, it could most conveniently be disposed of in an incinerator.

He put it down on the desk at last. And wiped his hands carefully in his handkerchief afterwards. Turner picked it up and started to read it. He surprisingly took it much better than Kent expected, even chuckling over some of it. ‘She must have had asbestos pants, guv. She was quite a fast worker, wasn’t she? A nymphomaniac in the making, I would say.’

‘There’s Roger Welbeck’s name in here. Going by the initials. That’s someone else we have to see. He’s the heating engineer, isn’t he? He does some work in the chapel, checking up on the heating and plumbing, and on her too.’ He chuckled richly. ‘If this is anything to go by, we must find out what time Welbeck arrived home.’

‘We could call on his wife, and get her version of the evening, before he can speak to
her?’

‘Good thinking, Turner
. We’ll do just that.’

12

The Welbecks lived in a long, tree fringed road of large detached private villas on the left hand side of the park and Kent was taken aback for a minute or so to see the large, white house designed in the thirties style, standing in its own grounds. It was definitely one of a kind. Its many front windows, and the flat penthouse type roof with a flourishing rooftop garden on top, looked like it came straight out of an Agatha Christie TV movie. Shades of Hercule Poirot, he thought with a broad smile getting out of the car.

‘Now this
, I could really go for - Turner,’ he said standing in the wide gravel driveway gazing up at it appreciatively for a while.

‘Takes a bit of getting used to at first,
guv,’ Turner chuckled. ‘Mrs Welbeck’s grandfather, Paul Grantham, designed it. He was an architect and a good one. He left a packet of money to her mother, Alyne, and the house. Although, Sara’s had it altered a bit since inside. She had a lift put in for her personal use with the wheelchair and she does some painting and gardening on the roof. It’s laid out with flowers up there, you see, real fancy.’

‘It must have a great view.

‘She said it gives her inspiration for painting and that was all she had when she first came back here after a car accident. She lost her small four-year-old daughter, Becky in it. Roger was driving and they went through hell together afterwards. She was in hospital for a long time and he doesn’t like anyone mentioning it much. Carole knows more than I do what went on in that marriage but she doesn’t tell me everything, even now. She used to visit as the district nurse and became a good friend to Sara.’

Kent rang the front doorbell and heard an attractive husky voice inquire, ‘Who is it?’

‘The police, MrsWelbeck. Detective Inspector Kent and Sergeant Turner. We would like to ask you a few questions concerning Maureen Carey. If we may co me in please?’

‘Okay.’ There was a buzz. ‘Push the door inwards and come up the stairs facing you, please. Or
, if you don’t fancy, the exercise you can use the lift in the hall on the side. It’s up to you, gentlemen. I’m in the studio room in the front.’

‘Stairs, Turner.’

‘Right, guv.’

Sara Welbeck opened the adjoining studio doors to them. She was in her wheelchair, a slim, attractive green-eyed fair-haired woman with a devastatingly sweet smile that made Turner toes want to curl
up. She always had that disturbing effect on him.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. I was really in need of a break and you’ve come at just the right time. Is this is about Maureen Carey? The dead girl?’

‘It is, we shan’t take up too much of your time I hope, MrsWelbeck. Thank you for agreeing to see us. We would like some information about last Thursday evening. Was your husband spending the evening with you at home?’

Turner took out his notebook and popped a sweet into his mouth, his biro poised over the blank page.

‘No, I’m afraid not. But why haven’t you asked him yet? Oh, I see...’ She smiled. ‘You want to see if our statements match. Well, he will tell you that he was rehearsing for the Mikado at the local theatre. Roger belongs to the local Amateur Operetta theatre club. He has a good tenor voice, actually, and he plays Nanky Poo.’ She chuckled. ‘Aiden Ludlam is in it too by the way. He would be able to vouch for Roger, I’m sure. They would have both been at the rehearsal.

‘I’ve been kept busy finishing a painting I was commissioned to do. Roger was late coming in, I think. He generally pops into the Nag’s Head for a pint or two after the rehearsals. To lubricate his tonsils, he says
, and I often work well into the wee small hours when I have to get something finished, and this portrait has been especially difficult.’ She shrugged her slim shoulders and made a slight moue with her generous mouth. ‘So it really doesn’t trouble me if he’s late home, within reason of course.’

‘Does Mr. Ludlam have a drink afterwards in the Nag’s Head?’

‘Aiden, doesn’t frequent the local pubs as a rule. I would think that Roger would have been home in bed by eleven thirty.’

‘Did you hear him come in?’

‘I didn’t, Inspector. I don’t hear anything as a rule. Not when I’m so involved with a painting.’

‘What
, or who, is the subject, MrsWelbeck?’ Kent’s gaze went over to the covered picture on the easel at the back of the large sunlit studio room. ‘It must be important to keep you working so late.’

‘It’s a girl’s portrait. Waiting for collection. But you didn’t know the girl personally, did you, Inspector Kent? It’s Maureen Carey.’

13

‘It’s good.’ Kent gazed at the finished oil painting of Maureen Carey on the easel and back to Sara Welbeck in the wheelchair. Surprise echoed clearly in his voice. ‘Very good and you were commissioned to do it?’

‘Her father wanted it for his wife’s birthday this month. Maureen wasn’t an easy subject but I think that I brought out the living essence of the girl. What do you think?’

He studied the portrait carefully and stood well back from it. Now he could tie up the resemblance here to the girl he’d last seen lying on the mortuary slab. Like a
fairy-tale princess, the girl in the blue silk dress stroked the fluffy white Persian kitten on her lap but the look in those heavy lidded, lapis blue eyes revealed that if a young Lolita ever existed, she was portrayed here on the canvas before him now, and it made him feel uneasy.

Turner beside him, coughed gently, felt in his pocket for the bag of peppermint lumps, popped one into his mouth and chewed it vigorously.

Sara Welbeck, watching Kent closely, said coolly; ‘I suppose you know much more about the wretched girl by now.’ Kent glanced at her quickly but made no comment. ‘As I did and I knew, when I was painting her, that Maureen Carey was no sweet innocent. She was a little tramp and she set out to seduce my husband, Inspector. She succeeded and she didn’t care a tinker’s cuss if I knew it.’

‘And did your husband guess that you suspected him of infidelity, MrsWelbeck.’

‘He doesn’t.’ There were traces of tears in those green eyes. ‘And I don’t think he killed her.’ And now a trace of raw agony tempered her husky voice. ‘She really wasn’t worth it and I knew that. But it didn’t stop me wishing her dead. So she was murdered and I might well have done it myself. I had the motive as the wronged wife.’ She shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘I wanted to slash and stab her with my palette knife while she was sitting here smiling back at me so sweetly.

‘I want to get this bloody picture out of the house as soon as possible. I’m afraid that I might take the knife to it instead.’ Her laugh was harsh and short. ‘I feel so damn sorry for her poor mother. Does this make me a bad woman, having evil feelings like this, Inspector?’

‘I gather that it wasn’t a pleasant situation for you to be in, MrsWelbeck.’

‘It wasn’t, Inspector. I could hardly express my reason for not wishing to paint Maureen to her parents.’

Turner with his biro suspended over his notebook, wondered uneasily how many more lives Maureen Carey might have spoilt and ruined during her young life. If she was still alive now.

‘Well
- thank you for your co-operation, MrsWelbeck. When shall we be seeing any of your work on show?’

‘In November, Inspector. In the Dolphin Gallery in the old town.’

‘I shall look forward to it.’

‘Thank you.’

In the car again Kent said, ‘So tell me more about the Welbecks, Turner?’

‘Since the car crash six years ago, Roger attends chapel and he works hard. They’ve pulled together well since the accident but it only needs a stupid mistake like his fooling around with the girl to ruin it for them all over again. She was under age.’

‘I don’t think Sara Welbeck is going to allow it. How many times has he fooled around with Maureen? Once I think would be enough to make him feel guilty again and it could have tipped the scales enough to make him want to commit murder.’

14

‘To the chapel next, Turner. Roger Welbeck is working there today. I called him on his cell earlier. We do not mention that we have already spoken to his wife, Turner. He sounded okay, so we’ll see what he has to say for himself.’

‘He’s had fair warning that we’re coming then.’ Turner settled himself in the driver’s seat and clicked on his belt. ‘And
- I think I should tell you now that he is my wife’s cousin, guv.’

Kent smothered a grin. ‘Really
- Turner. I’m not surprised to hear that as you’re a local. It shouldn’t affect your work on this case, should it?’

‘No, guv.’

‘Well then, don’t worry about it.’

The door of the Victorian chapel was standing open. It was an old stone building built in 1865 according to the stone engraving over the large oak door. It would take quite a bit of heating to keep out the damp and chill and the gloomy atmosphere, Kent reckoned. To reach it there was a high climb of worn grey stone steps like Jacob’s ladder leading up from the old part of the town, between rows of terraced houses to where the building was tucked away in a small road. That must test the stamina and the legs of some the chapel elders considerably, Kent thought as they drove by.

The chapel was built high on the top of the hill overlooking the old town and there was a long curving rise and a parking place for those with cars to reach it from the opposite direction.

Roger Welbeck was waiting near the entrance, an oily rag and a spanner in one hand. He smiled pleasantly at them. ‘Good morning, Inspector Kent, Stan
- Sergeant Turner.’ He had the boyish, youthful face of a Peter Pan, Kent noted, as they went inside.

‘It was good of you to agree to see us, Mr. Welbeck.’

‘Anything I can do to make your work easier, Inspector. You’ve got to find the killer sooner than later and you want to check out how well I knew Maureen Carey.’

‘Anything you can tell me will be in complete confidence, sir.’

He seemed taken aback for a second or so and his face reddened noticeably. ‘I’m a happily married man, Inspector. You’re not suggesting that I had a sexual relationship with Maureen, are you? She was only a schoolgirl. Just a kid.’ His laugh had a raw ring to it. Kent looked around and waited.

Turner felt uncomfortable. He wondered how long it would take before Kent put the pressure on Welbeck. How on earth did the silly blighter get himself involved with the wretched girl and what would Carole have to say about it? She was fond of Sara, that young woman had overcome terrific odds and if anything she was much stronger than her husband, but she didn’t need this bother in her life right now.

‘Well, sir, if you wish to deny it. You could perhaps tell me if she was having an affair with anyone else that you knew about.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t. Sorry
- ’

‘Perhaps then, you will admit that Maureen did make advances towards you. She was not above coming forward, was she?’

Welbeck dropped the tool he held in his hand with a clatter, his face reddened and looked anxious. ‘Look here, Inspector, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead and the Carey’s have just lost their daughter.’

‘Mr. Welbeck
- ’