Jam and Jeopardy (3 page)

She laid her shopping bag on the draining board, and took a flat plate out of the cupboard. Then she unwrapped the piece of mutton, laid it on the plate and placed her mesh, domed meat cover
over it. She didn’t have a refrigerator, silly modern contraptions, but the weather was so cold that the mutton would keep all right till she cooked it tomorrow. She couldn’t do it
tonight, because this was Guild night.

It was a pity she wouldn’t be able to have her usual steak pie on Sunday, but, on the other hand, she wouldn’t have to make any pastry. She never did much in the afternoons, except
her tapestry, but she found herself dozing more than stitching nowadays, one of the penalties of old age.

When she finished putting away her groceries, a bag of flour was still left sitting out. She mustn’t forget about it – it was the whole crux of the matter, her very lifeline –
but she’d have her snack lunch before she carried out the most important task of the day.

At seven-thirty in the evening in Number Three Honeysuckle Cottages, Violet Grant and Grace Skinner, two widowed sisters, were still heartbroken about the disappearance of their Skye terrier.
They were positive that he had been poisoned, but getting him back had had to wait until Friday, the only night that Janet Souter went out. They were too afraid of her to chance going into her
garden at a time when she could see them. It had taken much willpower for them to leave their darling pet so long in enemy territory, but deliverance was close at hand.

They were both dressed in old grey tweed skirts and dark grey jumpers, but Violet wore a matted green cardigan on top, while Grace had on a black jacket, originally part of a suit, but now
rather the worse for wear.

They weren’t exactly on the bread line, but they had to be very careful with the widows’ pensions they received from the state, and the small pensions allotted to them by their late
husbands’ employers. What little money they had in the bank was purely for emergencies, and couldn’t be touched in case they needed it in their old age.

‘She even suggested Benjie might have eaten some of the arsenic she laid in her garden to kill the rats. Oh, Grace, what’ll we do if he has?’ Violet, two years older, depended
on her sister for every little thing. ‘We’ll have to go round and look. He could be lying in agony . . .’

Grace Skinner had been extremely upset when the distressed Violet had reported her conversation with their neighbour last week, but had realised that they would have to wait until Friday to
search for their beloved pet, that being the only night that Miss Souter went out. She issued a warning before they set forth on their mission. ‘We’ll have to be careful that nobody
else sees us trespassing in her garden.’

‘Suppose
she
sees us herself?’ Violet asked, fearfully.

‘We’ll make sure she’s out. If there’s no light at the back, it’ll be safe.’

The sisters now donned flat stout shoes, slipped on threadbare tweed coats and, it being pitch dark by that time, Grace took their large torch with her. After making sure that the coast was
clear, they helped each other over the small fence. The rear of the house was in absolute darkness, so Grace swept the light in several large arcs, starting from a different position each time. It
revealed nothing, and after a few moments the petrified Violet was all for giving up their quest.

‘Benjie hasn’t eaten any of that arsenic after all, thank goodness. He’ll come back eventually, when he gets tired of his freedom. Let’s go home now . . .
please.’

Grace gave a low moan. ‘Wait. Look.’

As the beam of light lit up the pathetic form of the small dog, the sisters clutched at each other. ‘That horrible, wicked woman! Poor, poor Benjie.’ Tears coursed down
Violet’s face. ‘I wish she was dead, too. What harm had Benjie done her?’

Grace gripped her lips tightly together, and, taking off her coat, she bent down and enfolded the dead animal tenderly within its tweed depths. When she straightened up, holding the precious
bundle, she said, ‘We’ll get our revenge, Violet, I swear!’

Although she was only fifty-seven years old to her sister’s fifty-nine, Grace had always taken the initiative. She had looked after Violet when they were growing up, and also later, when
Kenneth Grant died, leaving a childless widow quite unable to cope.

When their grief spent itself, Violet asked, ‘What did you mean about getting revenge?’

Grace stuck her chin out fiercely. ‘I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.’

Only ten minutes later, she leapt to her feet in great excitement. ‘How could I have forgotten? I’ll use her own arsenic to pay her back.’

‘Oh no! You can’t possibly do that, Grace. It would be . . .’ her voice trailed away to a whisper. ‘It would be . . . murder.’

Grace’s vengeful expression didn’t change. ‘What she did was murder, too. Don’t forget that, Violet. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’

‘Don’t quote the bible at me. It doesn’t mean . . .’

‘It means what I want it to mean – pay-back in kind. Now, just wait there – I won’t be long.’

Thursday 24th November

It was so cold that Willie Arthur pulled his red ski hat right down over his ears before he took two newspapers out of his bag and folded one of them very carefully. If he
crumpled the old dragon’s
Courier
, he’d be for it, and she’d go complaining to Miss Wheeler again.

Whistling, he shoved a copy roughly through the letter box of the first cottage, then stopped, puzzled, when he came to Miss Souter’s door. Her pint of milk was still sitting on her step.
She was usually up at the crack of dawn – before dawn, in the winter – often waiting to grab her paper before he folded it. She must be ill.

He looked furtively through her bedroom window and saw that her bed had been made, and that everything seemed to be in order, so he walked past her door to the living room window, but there was
no sign of her there, either. She must be at the back, in her kitchen or the bathroom, both of which had been built on to the original house.

If she was up, she couldn’t be ill. She must have just forgotten to take her milk in. Her memory would be slipping a bit at her age. He pushed the
Courier under
the flap and turned
back. He was finished with Honeysuckle Cottages for the time being, because Number Three just took the
Evening Citizen.

He jumped down the steps and lifted his bicycle from the grassy bank, wishing that these three cottages had their front doors to the Lane like the houses at the foot. This was a funny set-up,
with no front gardens, just a narrow path along the buildings, and a barbed-wire fence separating them from a field. It was their long back gardens which ran on to the Lane, and they were the last
three houses in the village, or the first three, depending which way you were travelling.

When he turned left into Ashgrove Lane off the High Street, he glanced at the rear of the cottages and saw that smoke was spiralling from the chimneys at each end, but not from Miss
Souter’s. His unease returned, making him wonder if he should go and look in her kitchen window to make sure she was all right, but he was running late already, and the old woman would go
spare if she caught him snooping round her back door.

He carried on to the terraced houses at the bottom of the hill, where he had only one
Courier to
deliver, because the other five took the
Evening Citizen.
Walking up the first
path, he could see old Mrs Gray smiling to him from her window and, as he acknowledged her, he thought what a difference there was between the two oldest women in Tollerton. Miss Souter, though she
nipped around the village like a two-year-old, was nasty and cantankerous, but Mrs Gray, just as old, if not older, and crippled so much with arthritis that she couldn’t get out at all, was
always friendly and cheery.

He shoved his last paper through the letter box, and saluted to Mrs Gray again before he ran down the path and jumped on his cycle. He puffed laboriously up the hill, then, once he was on the
level again, he pedalled like mad down the High Street to leave his newspaper bag at Miss Wheeler’s shop – grocer-cum-baker-cum-newsagent-cum-post office – before going to
school.

‘See you at half past four,’ the postmistress remarked, from behind the grille.

Willie was on his way out when he remembered. ‘Miss Wheeler, old Miss Souter’s milk hadn’t been taken in when I delivered her paper, and her fire wasn’t lit.’

His employer, tall and angular, looked at him pityingly. ‘She’s a very old lady, Willie. She’s been having a lie-in.’

The fourteen-year-old shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I looked in her bedroom window and her bed had been made, but there was no sign of her. Nor in the living room, because I
looked in there as well.’

‘She’d have been in the bathroom having a wash, I suppose. That one can look after herself.’

‘OK, if you say so.’ Willie had passed on the problem, so he went off to school with a clear mind, and without further thought for Janet Souter.

Emma Wheeler did think about her, but only for a short time. Old Miss Souter was always ready to complain about the least little thing and didn’t deserve anybody’s concern.

A customer came in for two postal orders and stamps, followed closely by a senior citizen collecting his pension, followed even more closely by a long queue of housewives needing newly baked
loaves, so it was well after half past ten before Miss Wheeler’s conscience pricked her.

‘What do you think, Phyllis?’ she asked the young girl who served at the bakery counter. ‘Should I tell the police about Miss Souter, so they can go to find out if there is
anything wrong with her?’

Phyllis Barclay was seventeen years old, and had been working for Miss Wheeler for nearly a year. She was a pretty little thing with long blonde hair, but she was rather shy and retiring. She
considered the question carefully. She’d been on the sharp end of Janet Souter’s tongue more than once, and was completely terrified of her, but she didn’t like to think of the
old woman lying ill on her own. Thank goodness it wasn’t her place to make the decision.

‘I don’t know, Miss Wheeler,’ she said at last. ‘Whatever you think’s best.’

The woman pursed her thin lips. Miss Souter would be livid if the policeman went up there and there was nothing wrong with her, and she’d blame the postmistress for interfering in what was
none of her business. It would be better to play safe and do nothing. ‘If Derek Paul comes in today,’ she said, to salve her conscience, ‘I’ll have a word with him, but I
think I’ll leave things as they are meantime.’ She picked up her pencil and started doing some calculations on a piece of paper.

Phyllis could sympathise with her employer’s reluctance to act on Willie Arthur’s information. Miss Souter was not a person you would knowingly offend.

At half past four, the boy went back to collect the evening papers, and ducked down behind the counter for his bag. ‘Did you do anything about what I told you in the morning?’

Emma Wheeler looked slightly guilty as she pushed forward a bundle of
Evening Citizens.
‘No, Willie. I did mean to speak to Derek Paul if he came in, but he must have been for his
Courier
before you told me, though I didn’t notice.’

‘Oh well, I suppose she’s OK.’ The boy shoved the papers into his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

He forgot all about the matter until he was nearing the end of his round, but when he approached Honeysuckle Cottages and saw that there was still no smoke issuing from the middle chimney, he
felt most apprehensive.

He took the steps in one leap, and ran along the path. The milk bottle was still sitting at Miss Souter’s door, and he wondered what he should do. Luckily, the door of Number One opened,
and Mrs Wakeford came out. She was a pleasant, friendly woman, who often gave the boy a newly baked biscuit or a piece of sponge cake, and he decided to ask her advice.

She spoke before he could find the right words. ‘Willie, would you please post this letter for me when you get back to the shop? Here’s 40p and you can keep the change from the
stamp.’

‘Mrs Wakeford,’ the boy said hastily, before she went inside again. ‘I’ll put a stamp on for you, of course, but there’s something . . . Miss Souter’s fire
hasn’t been on all day, and her milk’s still at her door.’

‘Oh, my goodness!’ The woman looked flustered. ‘Have you rung her bell to see if she’s there?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But there was no sign of her in the morning, either, and she’s usually up before I deliver the papers.’

‘You should have told me in the morning, Willie. She must have been taken ill. You wait there and I’ll go and phone the police station.’

He wondered why she wasn’t going to phone the doctor if she thought the old woman was ill, but it was nothing to do with him. He slipped along to Number Three to deliver the
Citizen
and put his finger on the bell of the middle house on his way back, but nothing stirred. Miss Souter was definitely incapable of answering the door.

At last, Mrs Wakeford reappeared. ‘Constable Paul’s going to ask Sergeant Black to come up as soon as he comes back on duty, which shouldn’t be very long, but he told me to
phone Doctor Randall as well.’

‘I’d better finish my round, Mrs Wakeford. I’ve just five for the foot of the Lane, then I’ll be back.’ Willie thought she looked as if she needed somebody to be
with her, and he didn’t want to miss any of the excitement when the sergeant came.

When he ran off, Mabel Wakeford stood wringing her hands for a few seconds, before she went inside to have a small glass of the brandy she kept purely for medicinal purposes. If ever she needed
it, now was the time.

Willie returned in less than ten minutes, just before the police sergeant and the doctor, whose cars arrived one after the other. They parked in the Lane, to save congestion on the High Street,
and walked quickly along to the steps where Mrs Wakeford and her stalwart, rather excited, protector were waiting.

Sergeant Black took charge immediately. ‘Something wrong with Miss Souter, eh? Doctor, you’d better give me a hand to break down her door.’