The Company She Kept Read online

  The line of cars began to move again as the procession turned in at the gates of the old Hill Street Methodist chapel, a dismal building long since dissociated from its original function, now rented out for anything from flea-markets to carpet sales or the occasional rock concert, and now the hospital campaign headquarters.

  ‘Have we finished checking with these women working on this lark?’ Mayo asked. ‘They’d all have known Angie Robinson.’

  ‘So far none of them have reported seeing her on Tuesday. They rent the chapel only for three nights a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so nobody was there that night.’

  He would have expected them to be working flat out, now that the closure of the Women’s Hospital was imminent. Fund-raising appeals had penetrated as far as Milford Road station, where one of the WPCs had even tried to sell him tickets for an indoor barbecue and barn dance this coming weekend. He’d given her the price and told her to sell the tickets to someone else. Ninety-nine per cent of the women in the town seemed comprehensively for Dr Freeman and her campaign, and prepared to argue for it at the drop of a hat – he suspected Abigail might at that very moment be expecting him to ask for her views on the subject but he’d no desire to go down that particular path at the moment, or to be distracted from the subject of Sophie Lawrence.

  She obligingly accepted the change of subject when he returned to it. ‘Apparently she travels for most of the year, sir,’ she responded, driving them towards Pennybridge with some style, now that they were clear of the town.

  ‘What does she do for a living?’

  ‘I’m not sure she does anything. She owns Oundle’s Bookshop at the top of Denbigh Street, although someone else runs it for her.’ She was frowning as she gave him a brief rundown on what she knew of the independent circumstances of Sophie Lawrence and her sister, Roz Spalding. ‘As far as I know, Sophie’s never really worked. Her sister used to teach maths at the High School, but she’s given it up and become an Open University tutor.’

  ‘You’re remarkably well informed.’

  For some reason Abigail looked embarrassed at this, giving him a quick, sideways glance before turning her eyes back to the road ahead and keeping them strictly there. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she answered politely, but her neat profile had taken on a set look, as though it was not a compliment she was pleased to receive. From then on she was silent unless spoken to until they reached the Green at Pennybridge and spotted the tall, pink brick house they were looking for, outside which an expensive-looking red Datsun was parked. ‘Drive on round the corner and we’ll walk back,’ Mayo instructed.

  Women could, he thought as they walked towards the house, be the very devil to deal with. The experience of having Abigail working with him was – well, enlightening. He liked her direct common-sense approach, and perhaps even her intuition, a hitherto despised and considerably overrated function in his book, but he found the feminine nuances hard to keep up with. Was it something he’d said? Or something to do with Sophie Lawrence? The set of Ms Moon’s lips might well mean that she disapproved of the other woman’s superficial lifestyle, he thought, having already recognized in Abigail a streak of that same inherited Puritan work ethic he himself was alternately blessed and cursed with.

  The brick house had a shiny, black-painted door and sported a highly-polished brass knocker. A brisk rat-tat brought an answer almost immediately, in the person of an energetic-looking young woman in hip- and thigh-hugging black leggings and an oversized, paint-stained man’s shirt she’d belted round the waist, leaving her looking vaguely like some extra in a B film about mediaeval Florence. Assistant to Leonardo, perhaps. ‘Oh, right,’ she replied cheerfully to Abigail’s announcement of who they were, and her request to see Mrs Lawrence. ‘Hang on, I’ll tell her you’re here.’

  In a few moments they found themselves seated in a large drawing-room at the back of the house, a room whose pale gold silk walls and glowing, gold-framed prints gave it the appearance of floating in sunlight, although the day outside was grey and overcast. Elegant, eighteenth-century furnishings, stiff and formal to Mayo’s way of thinking. Not a thing out of line, every chair, table or cabinet a period piece. It was the sort of ambience he was ill at ease with.

  It was out of his class for one thing, but anyway he preferred things gathered together haphazardly, with undemanding comfort as the prime requirement.

  Sophie Lawrence came in, as elegant and expensive as the furnishings, and with the same delicate look, as if she might break if treated too roughly. She must have been very young at the time she worked for Kitty Wilbraham. Even now she looked barely thirty, a woman of nervous gestures with thin fingers and wrists seeming hardly adequate to support the quantities of gold jewellery jangling around them, wearing a mole-coloured suede skirt and a soft amethyst sweater. Her huge hazel eyes held an uncertain vulnerability, yet despite this, she spoke with self-assurance, quickly and a little huskily, and her smile had a fleeting charm. Abigail, instantly aware of designer clothes and a subtle scent she couldn’t identify, was conscious of her own favourite, hitherto perfectly acceptable suit and matching silk shirt being actually nothing much to write home about.

  Mrs Lawrence wasn’t surprised to see them. She made the right, conventional noises but she had already heard the news from her sister.

  ‘How can I help you? Not very much, I should think. I haven’t seen Angie for fourteen years.’ Said with a smile. Charming and delightful, willing to help ... and yet, Mayo felt they were not really welcome, that the visit was looked upon as an ill-mannered intrusion, which he supposed it probably was.

  ‘Fourteen years?’ he repeated, essaying a smile. ‘I’m impressed. Not many people can be so precise about when they last saw someone, especially after that length of time.’

  ‘I’m able to say exactly, because I last saw her just about the time I stopped working for Mrs Wilbraham. That was how I met Angie, when she visited Kitty – Mrs Wilbraham.’

  ‘What was their association?’

  ‘Kitty knew her through Madeleine Freeman, whose friend she was. Madeleine was Kitty’s doctor, and Angie used to come to Flowerdew with her.’

  The connections were slotting into place. He asked in what capacity Mrs Lawrence had worked for Mrs Wilbraham.

  ‘I was supposed to be her secretary. She’d been a famous archaeologist in her time and she was writing her memoirs.’ She made a deprecatory gesture, smiling faintly, sitting lightly on the edge of her seat. For all that she seemed so much in tune with her affluent surroundings, with her expensive clothes, jewellery and scent, she had the uncertainty and impermanence of a bird of passage, feathers ruffled and a little battered by the voyage, not quite as young as she had at first appeared. ‘I have to admit I wasn’t a very good secretary, but Kitty didn’t mind. It was more important to her to have someone simpatico ... you know, someone she could share a joke with, someone on the same wavelength.’

  His dark glance rested on her face, reading it. ‘I can appreciate it would be important to have someone you can get on with in the circumstances.’

  ‘It was more than that, we were friends from the word go. But you couldn’t not get on with Kitty. She was a darling – and such fun.’ Bending over an arrangement of cream hothouse lilies in a topaz glass bowl on the low table in front of her, she tweaked off a tiny, yellowing leaf, the slender fingers not quite steady. When she looked up, he saw her eyes bright with unshed tears. They were golden brown, like dark amber. ‘I was devastated,’ she went on, blinking rapidly, ‘when she suddenly decided to call off writing the memoirs and go back to Tunisia, though on reflection it was understandable. For one thing, the climate was better for her health. Flowerdew – the house where she lived – was damp, and it was never warm in the winter.’ As if actually feeling the remembered chill, she shivered and moved closer to the fire, wrapping her arms round herself for warmth, despite the soft cashmere she was enveloped in. It was a self-protective gesture, gauche and school-girlish, yet she managed to inv
est it with grace.

  ‘She suddenly decided to leave, you say? Didn’t she give you any warning? It must have taken some time to wind up her affairs.’

  ‘No, when I went in one morning, she told me what she’d decided to do. She gave me a cheque for my salary and that was that.’

  ‘Rather surprising behaviour, surely?’

  ‘Not if you knew Kitty. She was very impetuous. And she loved North Africa. She’d lived and worked near Tunis for a large part of her life and missed it very much.’

  ‘Presumably you’ve kept contact?’

  She hesitated. ‘She didn’t leave an address.’ She had an unconsciously annoying habit of twisting her gold bracelets round and round as she spoke. ‘Actually, I wrote several times but had no answer, so naturally ...’

  Mayo waited, saying nothing.

  ‘She was old, you know,’ she said defensively. ‘She was seventy-seven when she left England, and that was in 1979. I could only assume she must have died.’

  He watched Abigail note this down before continuing. ‘Tell me, did you live in, at Flowerdew?’

  ‘Sometimes I stayed the night, if we were working late, but mostly I went home. My sister wasn’t married then and I lived with her.’

  ‘Who else lived at the house?’

  ‘The housekeeper, Jessie Crowther.’

  ‘And nobody else?’

  ‘Not on a permanent basis.’ Twisting her bangles, she added, ‘But there were always lots of visitors. Kitty liked to have people staying with her.’

  ‘You say Angie Robinson used to come with Dr Freeman on her visits to Mrs Wilbraham. That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really. Madeleine was more than just her doctor – she was a very good friend. And of course she didn’t bring Angie with her when she called professionally – only when she visited socially. Kitty didn’t mind ... as I’ve said, anyone was welcome at Flowerdew.’

  ‘What sort of a house was it?’

  The abrupt change of direction made her blink but he had the feeling that it was not a change she welcomed, any more than the previous conversation. ‘An old house, with a lake in front, and a little island,’ she said after an interval, ‘but it’s impossible to describe it. You’d have to see it to really appreciate what it was like, you know?’

  He said easily, ‘Oh, I can probably imagine it. I know what these people who’ve lived abroad for most of their life are like. A famous archaeologist like Mrs Wilbraham, I expect the house was stuffed with mementoes of her work, artefacts and so on?’

  ‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘It wasn’t. Kitty couldn’t legally have brought the genuine thing out of Tunisia – the only things she had were replicas brought home by herself and her husband, and they were all kept in the one room. Some of them were rather grisly and apt to make people feel uncomfortable, so she’d had an extension built on, the room where she worked, especially to house them. They weren’t for public viewing.’

  ‘Masks, perhaps? Cremation urns?’

  She sat up just that much straighter, surprised and distinctly wary, a tinge of pink shading each high cheekbone. ‘Yes, she did have some things like that in her workroom. But otherwise Flowerdew was furnished just like any other house. But what is all this about Kitty and her home? I thought it was Angie Robinson you were interested in?’

  ‘Well, you see, Mrs Lawrence, Angie Robinson left a record of something that happened there that seemed to have upset her, and although it was apparently some time since, we have to investigate anything at all that might have some bearing on her death. You do see that?’

  ‘Of course I see it,’ she returned quickly. ‘But Angie was a hysterical type, it didn’t take much to upset her.’ She paused. ‘What sort of record? What did she say had happened?’ It was as if she held her breath while he answered.

  ‘A séance, for instance,’ he suggested, avoiding a direct answer. ‘That would be the sort of thing that would upset her?’

  He’d scored a bull’s eye there, Abigail thought, and saw at once how that might be the explanation of the puzzling phrase in the letter Angie had written. ‘ ‘The night she died, Dido came ... there were bad vibes ... death for the old woman.’ The spirit of Dido-Elissa. A séance. Of course.

  But Sophie Lawrence was frowning, pale face now even paler, and her soft mouth pulled in tight, professing not to understand. ‘A séance? What can you mean?’

  ‘A sort of gathering where I understand the spirits of the dead are called up.’

  ‘I know what a séance is – but we certainly never had one at Flowerdew! I can’t think what put that into your mind.’

  ‘Can’t you? Well, never mind,’ Mayo said. ‘It’s just a point that I expect I can clear up. So, it’s fourteen years since you last saw Angie Robinson? And you haven’t been in touch with each other since?’

  ‘Angie and I?’ One delicate eyebrow was raised, signifying incredulity. ‘There would have been absolutely no reason for us to do so. We weren’t friends, just acquaintances who met occasionally. We’d simply nothing in common.’

  ‘You didn’t see her on Tuesday evening, then?’

  ‘No, I did not. On Tuesday evening I was here at home, after about half past six, that is. Earlier, I went to see my sister with a present for my nephew, who’s in hospital at the moment. I came home and watched TV for a while, then went to bed early to read. I heard Maggie come in about ten but she has her own key and went straight to her room.’

  ‘Maggie?’ Mayo said, when Abigail had noted the relevant times. ‘Would that be the girl who let us in? Does she work for you?’

  ‘No, she’s a friend, a painter who uses the attic floor as a studio. Sometimes, when I’m away, she lives in the house. As she is doing at the moment.’

  ‘I’d like to have a word with Maggie.’

  ‘She’s gone out again, didn’t you hear her bang the door? Today’s her day for teaching at the Poly. And now –’ she glanced at the tiny gold wristwatch hiding among the bracelets and rose to her feet in one lovely, fluid movement ‘ – if that’s all, Chief Inspector, I do have an appointment to have my hair washed in a few minutes. It’s only round the corner but André doesn’t like his clients to keep him waiting.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Lawrence. We’ll be in touch later but I think that is all for the moment.’

  ‘Well, certainly, if you think there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to contact me.’

  Her smile was bright, brittle, social.

  How to be the gracious lady in one easy lesson. Like dismissing the bloody gardener, Mayo thought, as they walked back to the cul-de-sac where they had parked, furious with himself for minding. He thought he had lost that kind of sensitivity with his constable’s boots, but some people still had the ability to get under his skin. He’d accepted the dismissal because for the moment, there wasn’t anything more to be gained from questioning Sophie Lawrence. He felt very strongly that the real woman hadn’t been much in evidence, that the sophisticated veneer concealed a woman who was maybe unsure but maybe not. Certainly more than a little frightened. That most of what she’d told them and been rehearsed, that there were several things she hadn’t told them, and the only thing to do would be to come back when she was less prepared.

  ‘As a woman, what’s your impression of Mrs Lawrence?’ he asked Abigail.

  Abigail thought for a moment. ‘As a woman, I’d say she’s not very happy. Perhaps because she’s not living up to her potential.’ She flushed slightly, grinned and said, ‘In words of one syllable, she’s nobody’s fool, is she?’

  ‘Quite the opposite.’

  ‘And all she’s doing with her life is frittering it away.’

  ‘As far as we know,’ he said, giving her a sharp look.

  ‘As far as we know,’ she agreed evenly.

  When they reached the car, he said, ‘Radio for another car, Abigail, to come and pick me up, then you can drive down to the Poly and see what you can get from this girl Maggie.’ />
  CHAPTER 11

  Oundle’s Bookshop was a good place to be on a miserable early afternoon, the sort of shop where customers were actually encouraged to browse by a scatter of comfortable chairs set about at strategic points. The interior was warm, and the books on offer were interesting. Classical music tapes played unobtrusively in the background. In addition, the rear of the shop sported a well-patronized small coffee corner which sold Viennese pastries, homemade biscuits and slices of pie. It had been run for the last eight or nine years by a husband and wife called Conran. It was one of Alex Jones’s favourite places for relaxing when she was off duty. She was known as a good customer and greeted with pleasure by the Conrans. She had just brought a couple of paperbacks and a travel book and was sitting back with a cup of the most delicious coffee to be found in Lavenstock. Alex hadn’t Mayo’s ear for music; she wasn’t passionate about it, but under his tuition her musical tastebuds were coming alive and she was learning to savour classical music rather than gulp it down as medicine. She was surprised and delighted to recognize the Beethoven string quartet in a minor key that was being played ... and to be able to put a name to it, what was more: F minor, Opus 95. Its slightly melancholy strains were perfectly in tune with the damp, grey day. She was flicking through one of her new acquisitions, making the most of not being in any hurry, wickedly indulging herself with a slice of delicious Sacher-torte, when she looked up and saw Abigail Moon come in and order herself coffee.

  ‘Come and join me,’ Alex invited from her corner as the young WDC turned with her hands full and began to look for a table.