The Scold's Bridle (27 page)

Gingerly, she laid the key on the table and stared at it. Intuition told her that whoever had used the key last had killed Mathilda Gillespie, and she didn't need to be Einstein to work out that if their fingerprints had been on it she had just destroyed them with her own. "Oh Jesus!" she said with feeling.

"How dare you come into my house without asking." announced Joanna in a tight little voice from the hall doorway.

Sarah s glare was so ferocious that the other took a step backwards. "Will you get off your ridiculous high horse and stop being so pompous," she snapped. "We're all in deep shit here and the only thing you ever do is stand on your wretched dignity."

"Stop swearing. I detest people who swear. You're worse than Ruth and she has a mouth like a sewer. You're not a lady, I can't understand how my mother put up with you."

Sarah drew a deep angry breath. "You're unreal, Joanna. Which century do you think you're living in? And what is a lady? Someone like you who's never done a hand's turn in her life but passes muster because she doesn't utter profanities?" She shook her head. "Not in my book it isn't. The greatest lady I know is a seventy-eight-year-old Cockney who works with the down-and-outs in London and swears like a trooper. Open your eyes, woman. It's the contribution you make to society that earns you respect, not a tight-arsed allegiance to some outmoded principle of feminine purity that died the day women discovered they weren't condemned to a life of endless pregnancy and child-rearing."

Joanna's lips thinned. "How did you get in?"

Sarah nodded towards the table. "I used the key under the flowerpot."

Joanna frowned angrily. "Which key?"

"That one, and don't touch it, whatever you do. I'm sure whoever killed your mother must have used it. Can I borrow the phone? I'm going to call the police." She crushed past Joanna into the hall. "I'll have to ring Jack as well, tell him I'm going to be late. Do you mind? Presumably the cost will come out of your mother's estate."

Joanna pursued her. "Yes, I do mind. You've no business to force your way in. This is my house and I don't want you here."

"No," said Sarah curtly, picking up the phone on the hall table, "according to your mother's will, Cedar House belongs to me." She flicked through her diary for Cooper's telephone number. "And you're only in it because I've balked at evicting you." She held the receiver to her ear and dialled Learmouth Police Station, watching Joanna as she did so. "But I'm rapidly changing my mind. Frankly, I see no reason why I should show you more consideration than you're prepared to show your own daughter. Detective Sergeant Cooper, please. Tell him it's Dr. Blakeney and it's urgent. I'm at Cedar House in Fontwell. Yes, I'll hold." She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "I want you to come home with me and talk to Ruth. Jack and I are doing our best but we're no substitute for you. She needs her mother."

A small tic flickered at the side of Joanna's mouth. "I resent your interference in matters that don't concern you. Ruth is quite capable of looking after herself."

"My God, you really are unreal," said Sarah in amazement. "You couldn't give a shit, could you?"

"You are doing this deliberately, Dr. Blakeney."

"If you're referring to my swearing, then, yes, you're dead right I am," said Sarah. "I want you to be as shocked by me as I am by you. Where's your sense of responsibility, you
sodding
bitch? Ruth didn't materialize out of thin air. You and your husband had a
fucking
good time when you made her, and don't forget it." Abruptly she transferred her attention to the telephone. "Hello, Sergeant, yes, I'm at Cedar House. Yes, she's here, too. No, there's no trouble, it's just that I think I know how Mathilda's murderer got in. Has anyone told you she kept a key to the kitchen door under a flowerpot by the coal bunker at the back? I know, but I forgot about it." She pulled a face. "No, it's not still there. It's on the kitchen table. I used it to get in." She held the receiver away from her ear. "I did not do it on purpose," she said coldly after a moment. "You should have searched a bit more thoroughly at the beginning then it wouldn't have happened." She replaced the receiver with unnecessary force. "We've both got to stay here until the police come."

But Joanna's composure had abandoned her. "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" she screamed "I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THIS IN MY HOUSE!" She ran up the stairs. "YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH IT! I'LL REPORT YOU TO THE MEDICAL COUNCIL! MUD STICKS. I'LL TELL THEM YOU MURDERED MR. STURGIS AND THEN MY MOTHER."

Sarah followed in her wake, watched her run into the bathroom and slam the door, then lowered herself to the floor and sat cross-legged outside it. "Tantrums and convulsions may have worked a treat with Mathilda but they sure as hell aren't going to work with me. GODDAMMIT!" she roared suddenly, putting her mouth to the oak-panelled door. "You're a forty-year-old middle-aged woman, you stupid cow, so act your age." "DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!"

"But you get up my nose, Joanna. I have only contempt for someone who can't function unless they're doped stupid." Tranquillizers was Jack's guess.

No answer.

"You need help," she went on matter-of-factly, "and the best person to give it to you is based in London. He's a psychiatrist who specializes in all forms of drug addiction but he won't take you on unless you're willing to give up. If you're interested I'll refer you, if you're not then I suggest you prepare yourself for the long term consequences of habitual substance abuse on the human body, beginning with the one thing you don't want. You will get old very much quicker than I will, Joanna, because your physical chemistry is under constant attack and mine isn't."

"Get out of my house, Dr. Blakeney." She was beginning to calm down,

"I can't, not till Sergeant Cooper gets here. And it's not your house, remember, it's mine. What are you on?"

There was a long, long silence. "Valium," said Joanna finally. "Dr. Hendry prescribed it for me when I came back here after Steven died. I tried to smother Ruth in her cot, so Mother called him in and begged him to give me something."

"Why did you try to smother Ruth?"

"It seemed the most sensible thing to do. I wasn't coping terribly well."

"And did tranquillizers help?"

"I don't remember. I was always tired, I remember that."

Sarah believed her, because she could believe it of Hugh Hendry. Classic symptoms of severe post-natal depression, and instead of giving the poor woman anti-depressants to lift her mood, the idiot had effectively shoved her into a state of lethargy by giving her sedatives. No wonder she found it so difficult to get on with Ruth, when one of the tragic consequences of post-natal depression, if it wasn't treated properly, was that mothers found it difficult to develop natural loving relationships with their babies whom they saw as the reason for their sudden inability to cope. God, but it explained a lot about this family if the women had a tendency to post-natal depression. "I can help you," she said. "Will you let me help you?"

"Lots of people take Valium. It's perfectly legal."

"And very effective in the right circumstances and under proper supervision. But you're not getting yours from a doctor, Joanna. The problems of diazepam addiction are so well documented that no responsible practitioner would go on prescribing them for you. Which means you've got a private supplier somewhere and the tablets won't be cheap. Black market drugs never are. Let me help you," she said again.

"You've never been afraid. What would you know about anything if you've never been afraid?"

"What were you afraid of?"

"I was afraid to go to sleep. For years and years I was afraid to go to sleep." She laughed suddenly. "Not any more, though. She's dead."

The doorbell rang.

Sergeant Cooper was in a very tetchy mood. The last twenty-four hours had been frustrating ones for him and not just because he had had to work over the weekend and miss Sunday lunch with his children and grandchildren. His wife, tired and irritable herself, had delivered the inevitable ticking-off about his lack of commitment to his family. "You should put your foot down," she told him. "The police force doesn't own you, Tommy."

They had held Hughes overnight at Learmouth Police Station but had released him without charge at lunch-time. After a persistent refusal the previous afternoon to say anything at all, he had reverted that morning to his previous statement, namely that he had been driving around aimlessly before returning to his squat. He gave the time for his return as nine o'clock. Cooper, dispatched by Charlie Jones to interview the youths who shared the squat with him, had come back deeply irritated.

"It's a set-up," he told the DCI. "They've got his alibi off pat. I spoke to each one in turn, asked them to give me an account of their movements on the evening of Saturday, the sixth of November, and each one told me the same story. They were watching the portable telly and drinking beer in Hughes's room when Hughes walked in at nine o'clock. He stayed there all night, as did his van which was parked in the road outside. I did not mention Hughes once, nor imply that I was at all interested in him or his blasted van. They offered the information gratuitously and without prompting."

"How could they know he'd told us nine o'clock?"

"The solicitor?"

Charlie shook his head. "Very unlikely. I get the impression he doesn't like his client any more than we do."

"Then it's a prearranged thing. If questioned, Hughes will always give nine o'clock as the time he returns to the squat."

"Or they're telling the truth."

Cooper gave a snort of derision. "No chance. They were scum. If any of them were tamely watching telly that night, I'm a monkey's uncle. Far more likely, they were out beating up old ladies or knifing rival football supporters."

The Inspector mulled this over. "There's no such thing as an alibi applicable in all situations," he said thoughtfully. "Not unless Hughes always makes a habit of committing crimes after nine o'clock at night, and we know he doesn't do that, because Ruth stole her grandmother's earrings at two-thirty in the afternoon." He fell silent.

"So what are you saying?" asked Cooper when he didn't go on. "That they're telling the truth?" He shook his head aggressively. "I don't believe that."

"I'm wondering why Hughes didn't produce this alibi yesterday. Why did he keep mum for so long if he knew his mates were going to back him up?" He answered his own question slowly. "Because his solicitor forced my hand this morning and demanded to know the earliest time that Mrs. Gillespie might have died. Which means Hughes had already told him he was in the clear from nine o'clock, and hey presto, out comes his alibi."

"How does that help us?"

"It doesn't," said Jones cheerfully. "But if it was the set-up you say it is, then he must have done something else that night that required an alibi from nine o'clock. All we have to do is find out what it was." He reached for his telephone. "I'll talk to my oppo in Bournemouth. Let's see what he can come up with on the crime sheet for the night of Saturday, November the sixth." The answer was nothing.

Nothing, at least, that remotely fitted the
modus operandi
of David Mark Hughes. Hence Cooper's tetchiness.

He tut-tutted crossly at Sarah as he examined the key on the table. "I thought you had more sense, Dr. Blakeney."

Sarah held on to her patience with an effort, remembering Jane's admonishment not to let events sour her nature. "I know. I'm sorry."

"You'd better hope we do raise someone else's fingerprints, otherwise I might be inclined to think this was a stunt."

"What sort of stunt?"

"A way of leaving your fingerprints on it legitimately."

She was way ahead of him. "Assuming I was the one who used it to get in and kill Mathilda and had forgotten to wipe my fingerprints off it at the time, I suppose?" she said tartly.

"Not quite," he said mildly, "I was thinking more in terms of a Good Samaritan act on behalf of someone else. Who have you unilaterally decided is innocent this time, Dr. Blakeney?"

"You're not very grateful, Cooper," she said. "I needn't have told you about it at all. I could have put it back quietly and kept my mouth shut."

"Hardly. It has your fingerprints all over it and someone would have found it eventually." He glanced at Joanna. "Did you really not know it was there, Mrs. Lascelles?"

"I've already told you once, Sergeant. No. I had a key to the front door."

There was something very odd going on between her and Dr. Blakeney, he thought. The body language was all wrong. They were standing close together, arms almost touching, but they seemed unwilling to look at each other. Had they been a man and a woman, he'd have said he'd caught them in flagrante delicto; as it was, intuition told him they were sharing a secret although what that secret was and whether it had any bearing on Mrs. GUlespie's death was anyone's guess.

"What about Ruth?"

Joanna shrugged indifferently. "I've no idea but I wouldn't think so. She's never mentioned it to me, and I've only ever known her use her front door key. There's no sense in coming all the way round the back if you can get in through the front. There's no access on this side." She looked honestly puzzled. "It must be something Mother started recently. She certainly didn't do it when I was living here."

He looked at Sarah who spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "All I know is that the second or third time I came to visit her, she didn't answer the door, so I walked round to the french windows and looked into the drawing-room. She was completely stuck, poor old thing, quite unable to push herself out of her chair because her wrists had packed up on her that day. She mouthed instructions through the glass. 'Key. Third flowerpot. Coal bunker.' I imagine she kept it there for just that kind of emergency. She worried all the time about losing her mobility."