The Spring Cleaning Murders (10 page)

“Vienna Miller was there, too.” I put down my barely nibbled sandwich.

“A nice lady, from what Gertrude said, and wonderful good to her sister, the one that suffered a terrible tragedy some years ago. Leastways, that’s the word going around.”

“There was a little dog that died.”

Mrs. Smalley had been blowing her nose as I spoke and now looked up at me. “A little boy, did you say?”

“No, a dog. Her name was Jessica.”

“Well,” digesting this information, “there’s heartbreak everywhere you look, isn’t there? I suppose the vicar would tell me to be glad Gertrude’s in a better place, and maybe I could think that way if she’d gone peaceful in her bed. But I don’t think she was peaceful. And if she went with something on her mind, who’s to say she’ll ever rest proper in her grave, Mrs. Haskell?”

“I think you need to talk to Mrs. Malloy,” I said, “and see if she can shed any light on what was worrying Mrs. Large. And what about Lady Pomeroy? Perhaps Mrs. Large confided in her.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think so.” Mrs. Smalley shook her head. “Gertrude told me things had to be different after Maureen married. Said it wouldn’t have done for them to go on being pals, not in the old way. They had to think of Sir Robert. A man in his position and all wouldn’t want his wife in thick with the woman who cleaned his house. Gertrude counted herself lucky she got to stay on at Pomeroy Hall, even after working there thirteen years. She was careful as can be to draw a line between the past and the present.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, after which I asked Mrs. Smalley if she had Mrs. Malloy’s phone number in London. She said she was almost sure she had written it down in her address book, but just to be on the safe side, I said I’d give it to her again.

“There isn’t something you haven’t told me?” Mrs. Smalley leaned forward. “You’re not keeping anything back?”

“What sort of thing?” I dropped my pen and watched it roll across the laminated tabletop.

“Well, about how Gertrude died.” The small elderly face was more pinched than ever. “For instance, did the people that looked at her—the doctors and police and such—say if she went quick?”

“I’m sorry, no one said very much to me at all.” I picked up the pen as it was about to roll off the table. “There was very little information I could provide. And they talked to the Miller sisters in private.”

Mrs. Smalley wrapped work-worn hands around her teacup. “You’re sure no one said nothing about how maybe it wasn’t no accident that killed Gertrude?”

“Not to me. What are you thinking?”

“Well, what has had me scared is thinking that...”

“Yes?” I leaned forward and Mrs. Smalley did the same, until our faces were only inches apart.

“That... it was done on purpose.”

My nose almost collided with hers. “You mean, someone pushed her off that ladder?”

“Well, now.” She straightened up. “I wasn’t thinking nothing like that. People don’t really get murdered, do they? Leastways not people we know. What I meant, Mrs. Haskell, was that what with the nasty minds some people have, it might be said Gertrude did it on purpose. Jumped off that ladder, I mean, because she was in a depressed state of mind and wanted to end it all. ‘Course anyone that knew her well wouldn’t believe that for a minute. Not of a God-fearing woman like Gertrude, but—”

“Oh, Mrs. Smalley!” I covered her shaking hands with mine. “You’re worrying for nothing. It was a stepladder. A tall one, but not the kind used for cleaning second-floor windows. No one jumping off a stepladder would have a hope of killing themselves. If Mrs. Large didn’t fall because she was taken ill, she must have lost her footing and come down at the wrong angle or hit her head just that bit too hard.”

Mrs. Smalley gave me a watery smile. “It must be the shock, making me think silly.”

Which made two of us, I thought, sucking in a relieved breath, because what held true for suicide did the same for murder. If someone had wanted Mrs. Large dead, surely they would have come up with a method that had a strong possibility of success? No murderer would want his intended victim hopping up, not dead and eager to point an accusing finger. But what if it were a case of something in between? What if someone had entered the study at Tall Chimneys while Mrs. Large was on the stepladder? Mrs. Large, who, according to my brief phone conversation with Mrs. Malloy, was worried because she had discovered something about someone and wanted advice. And what if that someone with a secret to keep confronted Mrs. Large in the study and, losing all control, gave that ladder a shove?

“You’ve been so kind.” Mrs. Smalley’s voice snapped me back into the present “If I didn’t already have all my days filled, I’d be glad to come and work for you. But if you are looking for someone now that Gertrude’s gone, I could talk to Trina McKinnley when she gets back from her holidays. That should be the day after tomorrow, if I remember rightly. A couple of her ladies have moved away and Trina told me she’d wait till she got back to take on anyone new. Poor girl!” Mrs. Smalley sighed. “Trina’s going to be more shocked than any of us when she hears the news.”

“Why?”

“Because it could have been her on that stepladder this morning. It was only because Trina was on holiday that Gertrude went to clean for the Millers. Gertrude was good that way, always kept a half day free so she could fill in if one of our little group needed her to.”

“How kind of her,” I said. “And I really would appreciate your asking your friend about coming to work for me.”

“She’s not just a friend, is Trina. More like the daughter I never had.” Mrs. Smalley’s pale face creased into a smile. “Confides in me, she does, all about her boyfriend. Not much, he isn’t. And I worry about him knocking her about, even though Trina’s a girl who knows how to look after herself. But there I go rattling on again, when I expect you need to be going, love. Oh, I do beg your pardon—Mrs. Haskell.”

I smiled back at her. “I’m glad we met, despite the sad circumstances.” Getting to my feet and gathering up my bag, I hesitated, wondering if she was also ready to leave. But she explained she had to wait for her colleague, Betty Nettle. They had arranged to meet for a quick bite to eat and some shopping.

“She must have got held up,” said Mrs. Smalley. “But she’ll be here. She knows I’ll wait. Telling her about Gertrude isn’t going to be easy.”

Feeling rather as though I were leaving a baby on a doorstep, I said good-bye. I was almost out the door when I heard a peevish female voice at close range; she wasn’t talking to me, but to someone named Edward. Even so, I turned around and looked to where a couple were standing at the cafeteria counter.

“But you know I’ve been wanting to go to Abigail’s, Edward, ever since your mother told us what a wonderful meal she had there a few months back.” The woman had one of those expensively simple haircuts and wore a silk scarf in spring tones draped around the shoulders of a pink mohair coat. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.” She was now begrudgingly placing a napkin-rolled set of cutlery onto a tray.

“Yes, my dear,” responded the man with the practiced patience of one who began a lot of sentences this way. “But what would you have me do? I didn’t put those picketers outside that restaurant, now did I, dear? And if you had insisted on going in, I would have been right behind you.”

“I’ll say! Cowering under my skirts!” The woman gave a derisive snort and slapped away the man’s hand as he reached for a roll and butter, which in all fairness, from the looks of him, he may not have needed.

“Of course I was frightened,” he protested after sucking on his knuckles. “Any reasonable person would have been, getting shouted at like that. Being called a blood-sucking, gristle-chewing cow murderer isn’t my idea of a day’s outing; but if you had been prepared to risk your life to ...”

I didn’t stay to hear more. Now I knew why Freddy had overcome his aversion to exerting himself in order to cross the street and dissuade me from going to Abigail’s. His heart hadn’t been touched because I was having trouble parking. He had been bent on preventing me from seeing those picketers. People standing knee-deep at the door, he had said! Talk about skirting the letter of the truth. Undoubtedly Ben had been fully occupied making sure none of the waiters or waitresses stood too close to the windows, just in case one of those opposed to the spilling of animal blood tossed a brick at the window.

The escalator brought me down by the Estee Lauder cosmetics counter. From there it was only a few yards to the Market Street exit. I saw no point in driving and having to re-park outside Abigail’s. It was a short walk and I needed time to simmer down. I couldn’t be cross with Freddy, who’d undoubtedly had my interests at heart. But I was both angry and alarmed. I was tempted to charge into the thick of the picketers and start hitting them with my handbag. I needed to squash those feelings. Ben didn’t need me making things worse by getting myself arrested.

Sunlight sprinkled the pavement with fairy dust. Unfair, I thought. Where was rotten weather when you needed it? It should be pouring down rain, drenching the picketers to the bone. So that they could enjoy suffering for the cause.

Turning the corner onto Spittle Lane, I saw them. A straggling group of people was standing outside Abigail’s, all holding their placards aloft—although not as high, I hoped, as before their arms started to cramp up. Most of the signs read: “Stop the Slaughter. Don’t Eat Veal.” A couple brandished the words “Thou Shalt Not Murder.” And some were splattered with brownish-red paint—at least I hoped it was paint.

One face stood out in the crowd. It belonged to Mrs. Barrow, the church organist, a woman known to be militant on a number of issues, including sending missionaries to Mars to convert the aliens. It was she who had organized the anti-fur drive a couple of years back, as well as instigating a writing campaign to Queen Elizabeth demanding that the Tower of London be torn down because it glorified the nation’s bloody, barbaric past.

Ignoring her pitying look, I marched forward to the chant of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” with a lot of “Eeh aye, eeh aye, oh’s” (presumably from the poor little calves who had just discovered they weren’t just pasture decorations), and almost collided with a teenage girl. It was Frizzy Taffer’s daughter, Dawn, someone hard to miss at any time. Her long, once-brown hair was streaked flamingo pink and lime green. And she wore more eyeliner than Cleopatra. Her placard read: “People Who Kill Baby Calves Should Be Eaten Themselves.”

“Hello, Dawn,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Haskell.” Her expression became one of mingled embarrassment and defiance as she slung her sign over her shoulder, almost knocking out the eyes of the man standing behind her. “I took the afternoon off; anyway, it was only boring old geography.” She shrugged. “Who needs to learn that stuff when we’ve got travel agents to tell us the really important stuff—like don’t go to Rome in the winter because you won’t get a tan. And places to really party in Spain.” Her confidence was mounting. “I don’t care if you tell Mummy you saw me; she and Daddy can lock me in my room for a week and feed me only bread and water. Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in, whatever the consequences.”

There was no point in arguing with her. Dawn had already made up her mind what she wanted to be when she grew up—a martyr. But she was only a child and I was rather fond of her. So I couldn’t see myself carrying tales to Frizzy, who was even now watching my children. I urged Dawn to own up before someone, as was bound to happen, spilled the beans that he had seen her sporting a picket sign. Then, sidestepping the rest of the bunch, I ran up the steps shaded by the dark green awning.

Abigail’s entryway looked as it always did, dignified but inviting. I loved the narrow hall, with its Regency-striped wallpaper and the eighteenth-century rent table serving as a reception desk. I loved the way the walnut banister looped at the bottom like the satin-smooth coil of a young girl’s hair. I loved the long case clock that stood at the foot of the stairs. And most of all I loved the man now walking towards me.

“I thought Freddy persuaded you to go home.” Ben stood with his hands deep in his pockets, a rueful smile on his lips.

“No one and nothing can keep me away from you for long,” I said, dropping my shoulder bag on the floor and tossing down my cardigan in an impetuous heap.

“What is this?” He raised a bemused eyebrow. “Have you come to take advantage of me in this, my most desperate hour?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m a wife, so naturally I throw my things on the floor and expect you to pick them up.” I put my arms around his neck and drew his face down to mine in a long, deep kiss, making for one of the most thrilling embraces we had shared in a long time. It was as though something was dredged up from deep inside me, some emotion that I had experienced only once before—when the twins were born. The blossoming of that primitive protective instinct, the one that enables women to scale buildings in a single bound or lift up lorries with one hand while directing traffic with the other in order to rescue their children from danger. Women can wear coats of shining armor too, the only difference being that historically we have always worn them under our everyday clothes.

“Who cares if the staff is watching?” I whispered, coming up for air and twining my fingers through the dark curls at the nape of my husband’s neck.

He held me tighter and traced another kiss across my lips. “I sent them home, even Freddy.”

“So it’s just you and me and all this lovely empty space,” I said, promptly bringing us both back to reality.

“Unless we count the picketers at the gates.”

“Darling, I’m so sorry.”

“I wish you hadn’t had to see them.” Ben stepped back but did not let go of my hands.

“Rubbish!” I tried to speak briskly. “You can’t help it if those people out there are a bunch of crackpots.”

“Not all of them, Ellie.” He smiled wryly. “Some of my best friends are vegetarians.”

“Well, Mrs. Barrow is a fruitcake if ever there was one.”

My staunch protest was once again silenced with a kiss, and then he asked the inevitable question. “What did you want to talk to me about, sweetheart? Freddy said you seemed all on edge.”