COPYRIGHT

Harper

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1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 1981 by Collins Crime

Copyright © Emma Page 1981

Emma Page asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008175900

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175917

Version [2016-02-18]

DEDICATION

For Christopher

with love

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the Author

By Emma Page

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

Eight o’clock on a clear golden morning in late September. The village of Abberley had been awake and astir for an hour or more. On the road that led north out of the village to the town of Cannonbridge two miles away, a tall house named Lynwood stood up on a bank and looked west across the valley. It was a substantial dwelling of graceful proportions, dating back to the early years of Victoria’s reign, set on the edge of farmland with smooth lawns falling away from it on all sides.

In the large front bedroom on the first floor Vera Foster settled back into the nest of lacy pillows that Miss Jordan had just shaken up with professional efficiency.

Vera ate the last of her porridge, beautiful thick creamy porridge cooked all night in the kitchen Aga in the Scottish fashion. Her father – now dead – had been Scottish. That was how he liked his porridge cooked, that was how it continued to be cooked at Lynwood, nine years after his death.

Very gingerly she moved her left leg into a better position. The sciatica was receding now but regular attacks over the last few years had taught her a wary respect for the pain and its ability to spring suddenly back at her when she had fancied it vanquished.

Over by the long windows Miss Jordan drew the rose-flowered curtains further apart.

‘It’s a lovely morning,’ she said in her precise tones. ‘I’m sure it’s going to turn out warm this afternoon. I could move a chair out on to the balcony. If you wrapped up you could sit out for half an hour.’

‘I’m certainly not well enough to sit outside,’ Vera said crossly. A stubborn look appeared in her china-blue eyes. She drank her coffee with a moody air.

The sciatica laid her low with relentless regularity twice a year, in spring and autumn. She made the most of these enforced retreats, expecting – and receiving – a good deal of pampering and cossetting.

But Miss Jordan was a newcomer to Lynwood; she had been sent by the Cannonbridge agency a couple of weeks ago in response to an urgent request from Vera. She was not a trained nurse but a companion help with some nursing experience. She was a tall angular woman in her early forties with a sharp-featured face and a disciplined, authoritative manner. She adopted towards her patient a more bracing attitude than Vera was accustomed to. Competent and careful Miss Jordan certainly was, attentive enough, even kind in her impersonal way, but indulgent and cossetting she certainly was not.

Vera had attempted at the start of the fortnight to address Miss Jordan by her first name – which was Edith – but Miss Jordan was by no means disposed to allow such familiarity. She had never done so, never considered it wise, certainly didn’t intend to begin now. Had she permitted it, Mrs Foster would very shortly in return have asked her to call her Vera, in the hope of establishing the kind of indulgent cosy intimacy she had known with her father and had been ceaselessly trying to find elsewhere ever since his death.

Vera’s father, Duncan Murdoch, was over seventy when he died and he had been in declining health for several months. But his death had all the same struck his daughter a shattering blow.

He had been working in his study on the ground floor of Lynwood – he ran his own business, the Cannonbridge Thrift Society, and he used the Lynwood study as a subsidiary office in addition to his regular office in the town.

Vera had just looked in to see if her father wanted coffee. He glanced up and smiled at her with his usual look of affection. He said, ‘That would be a very good—’ and suddenly clutched at his chest and fell forward across the desk.

He was dead from a massive heart attack before Doctor Tredgold arrived eight minutes later, snatched from the middle of morning surgery.

But that was all nine years ago, when Vera was still a pretty young woman, certainly a total stranger to the sciatica that afflicted her these days. Now she settled herself further back against the pillows and levelled a mulish look at Miss Jordan’s straight and elegant back.

‘I have no intention of stirring from this bed for another week,’ she said in a louder tone than was necessary. ‘I’m sure Doctor Tredgold doesn’t expect me to get up so soon.’

Miss Jordan turned from the window. Her neat overall covered a tailored dress cut on classic lines. She wasn’t good-looking but there was something in her calm face that drew the eye.

Her delicate skin had a pale, creamy tint and she wore no make-up. She had a good deal of thick dark hair arrestingly streaked with white; it was drawn back into a heavy knot at the nape of her neck. Her eyes, a light clear hazel, were large and well set.

‘Oh, come now, Mrs Foster,’ she said in a rallying tone. ‘I’m sure Doctor Tredgold expects better results than that from his treatment. When he was here on Monday he told me I wouldn’t be needed here much longer.’ Miss Jordan went out from the Cannonbridge agency on short-term postings. ‘He thought I’d be able to leave early next week.’

‘You can’t possibly leave as soon as that,’ Vera said in loud protest. ‘I won’t hear of it.’

There was a sound of movement along the corridor, footsteps in the adjoining bedroom. Vera glanced towards the connecting door. It opened a little and her husband’s face appeared in the aperture.

‘Just seeing to my overnight bag,’ he said with amiable briskness. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’ His face vanished from the doorway.

Vera drew a long sighing breath. ‘I’ve finished with the tray,’ she said abruptly to Miss Jordan. ‘I’ll do my hair now.’

Miss Jordan removed the tray and brought some toilet articles over from the dressing table. She set them down within Vera’s reach.

Miss Jordan had very smooth white-skinned hands with long slim fingers. She did a good deal of fine needlework and took great care of her hands.

She held the mirror while Vera teased the front of her hair into artless curls. Her hair had always been fine and delicate and was now growing perceptibly thinner. The colour, once a soft honey-blonde, was now harsher and deeper from regular tinting. The sciatica had prevented her from visiting the hairdresser in Cannonbridge and greyish streaks showed along her temples and parting.

‘My make-up tray,’ she commanded and Miss Jordan brought across the lipstick and powder, the eye-shadow and mascara.

‘Are you good with hair?’ Vera asked as she worked on her face. Perhaps Miss Jordan could wash her hair with a colour shampoo; it might serve as temporary concealment for the grey. ‘Today’s Thursday,’ she added. ‘Alma could buy a shampoo for me this afternoon in Cannonbridge.’ Alma Driscoll was the Lynwood housekeeper. Every Thursday she set off from Lynwood after lunch for a jaunt into Cannonbridge.

Each alternate week Alma didn’t return to Lynwood till next morning, spending the night at another house in Abberley village, an Edwardian villa called Pinetrees, standing about a quarter of a mile from Lynwood.

Pinetrees belonged to a couple who had been friends of Vera Foster’s father. They were both old now and frail, very dependent on the services of their resident house-keeper. Once a fortnight this housekeeper went off to see her married daughter in a neighbouring village. She spent the night there and caught the first bus back in the morning. By arrangement with Vera, Alma Driscoll stayed the night at Pinetrees in her place, to keep a friendly eye on the old couple.

‘If Alma gets me the shampoo,’ Vera went on, ‘do you think you could wash my hair tomorrow?’

‘Certainly.’ Miss Jordan had spent nearly ten years in one post – before she took up temporary work with the agency – and she had washed and waved the long white tresses of that fastidious employer on a great many occasions. She could certainly cope with Mrs Foster’s scanty locks.

Vera patted turquoise eye-shadow – too lavish and too bright – over her crêpy lids. ‘If you didn’t know how old I was,’ she said suddenly, ‘what age would you take me for?’ She stared intently at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Be honest, I shan’t be offended.’

She had told Miss Jordan at their first encounter that she was thirty-two. In fact she was forty and looked fifty. She cherished the illusion that Miss Jordan was about to reply twenty-eight. Or thirty at the very most.

Miss Jordan knew well what Mrs Foster wished to hear. ‘Twenty-nine,’ she said judicially, splitting the difference.

Vera’s expression softened. She made a pleased inclination of her head and for a moment Miss Jordan could see the girl she once had been, Daddy’s little darling, pretty, cherished. And hopelessly spoiled.

Vera brushed mascara – too thick and too dark – over her sparse lashes. ‘I’ve been married for eight years now, believe it or not,’ she said with a complacent air.

‘Indeed.’ Miss Jordan had no difficulty in crediting the eight years, she could have swallowed eighteen without demur.

‘I take it you’ve never been married?’ Vera asked.

‘I have not.’

‘You’ve never felt the need?’ Vera persisted with unlovely curiosity.

‘I most certainly have not.’ Miss Jordan’s lips came together in a grim line. ‘Nor am I likely to.’

‘Oh, you never know,’ Vera said lightly.

‘Indeed I do know,’ Miss Jordan said with force. ‘One does not marry by accident.’

The connecting door opened wide and Gerald Foster came into the room.

‘I think I’ve got everything,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ll be off in a few minutes.’ He advanced towards the bed, smiling at his wife.

He was a little above average height, with a spare figure and narrow shoulders. He was six years younger than Vera but looked considerably older than his age, not because of any greying or fading but from the many lines on his face. His habitual expression was of reflection and calculation, of devoting sustained and intense thought to the complicated business of living.

He had never really looked young, not even as a lad, he had always looked like a serious adult temporarily inhabiting the skin and flesh of a child – a boy – a youth.

Eight years ago when he and Vera got married, with Vera at thirty-two briefly restored by the stimulus of the event to the pretty flush of youth, and Gerald at twenty-six looking even more solemn and unsmiling under the weight of his new responsibilities, anyone would have taken Vera for the younger of the pair. Now they seemed much of an age, somewhere in the vague stretches of middle life.

‘I’ll phone you about nine o’clock this evening,’ Gerald said. ‘Just to see that everything’s all right.’ He patted his wife’s hand with an affectionate smile.

Miss Jordan turned from the bedside and made to leave the room discreetly, but Vera raised a hand to halt her.

‘There’s no need to go rushing off,’ she said. ‘You can clear away these things.’

Miss Jordan gave a little nod and busied herself gathering up the toilet articles while contriving with professional ease to efface herself from the presence of the married couple and whatever private conversation they might be about to engage in.

‘I’ll try not to be late back tomorrow,’ Gerald said. ‘With luck I should be here by seven or eight.’

He was off on a business trip to Lowesmoor, a large town some seventy miles away. He had worked as a clerk for Vera’s father, had been highly thought of by that shrewd gentleman. After Murdoch’s death Gerald had taken charge of the business; he had gone in for a programme of systematic expansion and made a considerable success of it.

‘I wish you didn’t have to go away,’ Vera said with a pout that had ceased to be girlishly attractive a good ten years ago but which she mistakenly retained in her armoury. ‘You know I hate it here on my own.’

‘I go away as little as I can,’ Gerald said with an air of great reasonableness. ‘Hardly ever for more than one night and never more than twice in a month.’ He smiled. ‘You don’t want me to neglect the business, do you?’

‘All this expansion,’ Vera said mutinously. ‘I can’t see it’s necessary. I’m sure Daddy would have thought it risky.’

He gave her a humouring smile. ‘I never take unnecessary risks, my dear, you know that.’

She wasn’t to be won over so easily. ‘Daddy didn’t find it necessary to keep going away. He hardly ever went away on business.’

She led a very shut-in life. She had no close women friends, no relatives, scarcely any visitors. She had been very close to her father, had been desolated by his death, had tried to replace him with Gerald, not altogether with the success for which she strove and was still striving.

He stooped and kissed her cheek. ‘I’ll get my things,’ he said, ‘then I must be off.’ As he turned towards the connecting door he added mildly, ‘Times have changed a good deal since your father’s day. The business is very different now.’

Indeed it was. Duncan Murdoch had been the grandson of a Scottish crofter. His father had left the croft as a young man and gone south, to England, in search of lusher pastures. He worked for some years as a clerk, living with the utmost frugality, saving every penny. He laid out this little capital by way of small weekly loans to workmates spent up before pay-day.

Eventually he left paid employment and started a thrift and credit-voucher business of his own. The little enterprise prospered. He never overreached himself, was content with a modest success.

His son Duncan worked as his assistant, inheriting the business on his father’s death. He broadened its scope to include hire purchase and various other kinds of minor financial transactions. He kept it all on a very sound and stable footing; indeed, his temperament and upbringing made him excessively cautious. He was never gifted with imagination or business vision.

On his death the business passed to Vera, his only child. She would have been incapable of running it on her own and was greatly relieved when Gerald Foster – at that time her father’s clerk – agreed to take over the running.

Six months later they were married and became joint owners, joint partners in the enterprise. In actual practice this meant that Gerald continued to run the business and at regular intervals placed a sheaf of papers before his wife for her signature.

Duncan Murdoch had kept a lot of good capital locked up, earning its safe little percentage, risking nothing, producing nothing. Gerald Foster knew the value of capital from never having been able to lay his hands on any. He had inherited nothing from his poverty-stricken parents.

In his clerking days he had saved every penny, done what he could with it, but it never amounted to a row of beans.

As soon as he found himself in control of the Cannonbridge Thrift Society he lost no time in putting Duncan Murdoch’s reserve capital to work, shrewdly and carefully.

He kept all the original basis of the business but branched out to embrace small property deals, very small to begin with, tail-end bargains from executors’ sales and the like, run-down shops, clapped-out businesses, disreputable-looking cottages.

Everything he touched prospered. The cottages cleaned up and modernized remarkably well, the shops sold to developers who pulled them down and reared in their place neat modern frontages.

And Foster was above all fortunate in being able to jump on the bandwagon at the right time. When the markets took a tumble and inflation ran riot, he was busy buying and selling, trading and dealing.

But he didn’t lose his head, didn’t start to fancy himself a potential tycoon. He had the little office in Cannonbridge done up and made a good deal more efficient and convenient. But that was all.

He employed only one assistant, a general clerk. She was a formidably competent and respectable woman of powerful build and indeterminate age. He would no more have dreamed of employing some daft and decorative little eye-catcher unschooled in letters and numbers than his father-in-law would have done.

Foster came back now into his wife’s bedroom carrying a briefcase and an overnight bag. ‘You’re certainly looking a lot better,’ he said bracingly. ‘You should be up in a day or two.’

‘I feel very far from well,’ Vera said with one of her sudden fits of moodiness. ‘You have no idea how painful sciatica can be.’

‘I don’t suppose I have,’ he said with an air of apology. He stooped and kissed her cheek. ‘But I do know I’m leaving you in very good hands.’

He gave a little formal nod in the direction of Miss Jordan, who made a vestigial bow in return, to indicate that she had heard and appreciated the compliment, while still contriving to remain invisible – and indeed absent from the scene.

‘It’s so boring,’ Vera said fretfully. ‘Stuck here all day with nothing to do.’

‘You can surely find something to entertain you.’ Gerald waved a hand at the television set, the radio, books, magazines. ‘If there’s anything else you want, I’m sure Miss Jordan or Alma will be happy to get it for you.’ Vera moved her head sulkily but made no reply.

He patted her shoulder. ‘Do cheer up, my dear. It’s a lovely day.’ He picked up his cases. ‘I must be off, I have to call in at the office first. Miss Greatbach will be wondering where I’ve got to.’ He smiled again and was gone before Vera might decide to allow tears to trickle down her cheeks.

Downstairs in the kitchen the housekeeper, Alma Driscoll, was busy with her chores and at the same time chatting amiably to her uncle, Matt Bateman. Matt was sitting at the table, finishing off the substantial snackmeal Alma had set before him.

He was a retired labourer living alone in a tiny cottage half a mile along the road to Abberley village. He had never married, had never seen much good come of it, nothing but loss of freedom and general aggravation. He dropped in at the Lynwood kitchen most days, to see his niece, drink a cup of tea, have a bite to eat. And cast his sharp eye round for any little unwanted trifles that might be doing nobody any good just lying about, but might come in very handy at his little cottage.

Alma rinsed out the teapot and set it down on a shelf. The room was large, with what had once been a butler’s pantry opening off it.

Vera’s parents had had the house modernized when they moved into it immediately after their marriage. Gerald Foster had caused further substantial improvements to be carried out after his own marriage. Vera would have been quite happy if he had left the house as it was; she would have felt that this enshrined her father’s memory.

But she was pleased all the same when the improvements were carried out. She appreciated the new comfort and convenience even if her nature didn’t allow her to open her mouth and say so.

Alma picked up the teacups from the table and carried them to the sink. She was a plump, cheerful-looking woman in her middle thirties. She had married once and lived to regret it. She was now a resolute divorcée amusing herself when and where she chose.

She glanced up at the clock. ‘Time you were taking yourself off,’ she said to her uncle with pleasant firmness.

He got to his feet. There was one further benefit from his visit that he intended to have.

‘I’ll just have a word with the gaffer,’ he said easily. ‘About the firewood.’ There was a beautiful lot of wood lying along the edge of the Lynwood shrubbery where the jobbing gardener, Ned Pritchard, had piled it two days ago.

Matt had marked the wood for his own. It would burn very nicely in the kitchen of his little cottage.

‘You certainly will not ask Mr Foster about the firewood,’ Alma said. ‘I won’t have any kin of mine coming here cadging.’

She saw nothing amiss in diverting a certain amount of Mr Foster’s food and drink towards her uncle in the course of his frequent calls at Lynwood. That was straightforward perks and nothing to be ashamed of.

And she made no secret of the pie or spiced fruit-loaf that she carried in her basket when she called in at Matt’s cottage. But that was quite definitely as far as she would

‘Miss Vera wouldn’t mind if I had the wood,’ Matt said. ‘Her Dad would have let me have it if he was still alive. A fine old gentleman, Mr Murdoch, I always got on well with him.’

‘And Mr Foster’s a first-class employer,’ Alma retorted. ‘I get on well with him. And I mean to keep on getting on well with him. You’re not asking him for that wood.’

‘Ned Pritchard’ll have it if I don’t,’ Matt said with resigned protest.

‘That’s up to Mr Foster. It’s his wood, he can do what he pleases with it.’

Matt pulled on his jacket with its deep and well-used pockets not immediately visible to the questioning eye. He picked up his cup.

‘Now mind,’ Alma said as he opened the door. ‘One word about that wood and you’ll have me to reckon with.’

‘I shan’t say anything.’ He’d already set his mind on another and equally fertile source of free fuel. No need to mention the fact to Alma. She was a dear girl but she did go on a bit.

‘You’ll be looking in at the cottage this afternoon?’ he asked.

She gave a nod. ‘I’ll see you as usual.’

‘This is your night for sleeping out at Pinetrees?’

‘That’s right.’ She came out of the kitchen and stood beside him on the doorstep, looking out at the mellow day.

‘It’s a lovely time of year,’ Matt said with deep pleasure. ‘The pheasants will be fine and fat now.’

She gave him a sharp slap on the arm. ‘Don’t let me hear of you poaching,’ she said fiercely.

Not that he’d ever actually been hauled up into court and charged with poaching, and not that he’d ever admitted such an activity to her, but she had grave suspicions all the same. He gave her a reassuring grin and she turned back into the kitchen.

Matt walked along the side of the house and saw Mr Foster backing his car out of the garage. Matt couldn’t help himself, he took a chance; no need for Alma to know if it didn’t come off. He went up to the car and stooped by the window.

‘All right if I take that bit of wood?’ he said amiably to Mr Foster. ‘I’ll give you an hour or two in the garden for it.’

Gerald Foster turned from his own preoccupations and was momentarily irritated by the cheerful cadginess of Bateman, Matt’s happy assumption that other men strove so that he could help himself to the fruits of their labours.

At another time Gerald might easily have nodded agreement, might have been no more than mildly amused by Bateman’s cheek. But now he said curtly, ‘It’s certainly not all right. You leave that wood where it is. Ned Pritchard is to have it. He chopped it down.’ Gerald began to turn his car.

‘That’s all right, Mr Foster,’ Matt said genially. ‘No offence intended and none taken, I hope.’ Gerald merely nodded and grunted in reply and Matt went swinging off down the drive.

He whistled as he strode along the road. He walked with a strong upright carriage, jaunty and free. He was still agile and quick on his feet in spite of his sixty-nine years.

All his life he’d been a country lad, wouldn’t give you tuppence for the town. He disapproved of almost every change that had taken place in his lifetime. He ignored the greater part of those changes and lived his life in a manner not much different from the way his father had lived his.

Matt lived in the cottage where he had been born; during his working life he’d been a labourer in the local quarry where his father and grandfather had worked before him.

In Matt’s eyes the village of Abberley was the centre of the universe. He’d grown up with the strong conviction – passed on to him from his father – that disaster would surely strike any man rash enough to wander far from his native sod.

He had set foot in the neighbouring town of Cannonbridge no more than a couple of dozen times in his life. He’d been further afield than that only once, in the days when his Dad was alive.

The Vicar had organized a coach outing to the seaside on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of King George the Fifth. Matt’s Dad had prophesied disaster for the outing, and Matt’s Dad had been right.

Matt was sick on the coach going to the sea and even more sick on the coach coming back. As he finally staggered off the coach at the end of the day he vowed never again to set foot on anything more venturesome than the bus into Cannonbridge.

He glanced about him now as he swung along. I’ll slip on up to Farmer Jauncey’s top field, he decided. Plenty of good wood up there and Jauncey didn’t mind him slipping along once in a way to help himself.

Matt was as vigilant and observant as any professional gamekeeper and in return for the blind eye turned on his own pursuits by local landowners he made sure no gangs of townee villains came on to their terrain to plunder and steal in quantities Matt couldn’t and wouldn’t have shifted in a dozen lifetimes of semi-honest endeavour.

He reached the top field and surveyed the ground. He would just take enough wood now to be going on with, he could come back again later.

His sharp eyes spotted some droppings under a tree and he stood for a minute or two staring up into the branches with keen interest.

Then he pulled a length of stout rope from one of his pockets and began to pile up a nice selection of boughs, ready to sling the bundle across his shoulders.

It was still not quite ten o’clock. Miss Jordan went quietly up from the kitchen where she had been drinking coffee with Alma and softly opened the door of Mrs Foster’s bedroom.

She peeped in to see if Mrs Foster was settling down for her nap. But Vera was still wakeful; she heard the whisper of the door.

‘I’m not asleep,’ she said loudly. ‘Come in.’

Miss Jordan went into the room. ‘Would you like your hot chocolate now?’ she asked. Vera was very fond of hot sweet drinks, chocolate in particular.

‘No, I’ll have it later. I want you to phone Doctor Tredgold now, I don’t feel at all well.’

Miss Jordan glanced at her watch. ‘You must phone him right away,’ Vera insisted. The doctor was a stickler about time. He liked all house calls to be notified before ten o’clock.

‘I can’t in all honesty tell him,’ Miss Jordan said with a small sigh, ‘that I think he ought to call. I can’t see that you need him. He’s a very busy man.’

Tredgold was no longer young and his temper wasn’t sweetening with advancing years. But Vera wouldn’t dream of changing doctors. He’d been her father’s doctor, her own doctor since she was a child of seven.

She began to struggle up in the bed. ‘If you don’t phone him, then I will,’ she said with determination.

‘Very well, I’ll do as you ask.’ But Miss Jordan wouldn’t make use of the phone beside the bed. She was far too professional for such amateur indiscretions. She went down to the study; the phone there wasn’t connected to the one in the bedroom.

A few minutes later she went back up the stairs, carrying a tray. ‘Doctor Tredgold will be here about half past eleven,’ she told Mrs Foster.

She set down the cup of chocolate and a small plate of the sugary biscuits Mrs Foster liked. She made no mention of the doctor’s irritated references to neurotic female patients and the wasting of his valuable time.

‘I knew he’d come,’ Vera said with a satisfied smile. ‘He always comes when I want him.’ She waved a hand. ‘I’ll have the white tablets now.’

Miss Jordan brought over the bottle; it was almost empty. Vera tipped a tablet out into her palm. ‘I’ll have to ask him for some more of these,’ she said.

As she sipped her chocolate she suddenly said, ‘You might pass me my father’s photograph.’

This was a large studio portrait. Vera often liked to hold it, to look at her father’s wide brow and resolute chin, letting the happy days of the past rise up before her.

Miss Jordan picked up the photograph in its heavy silver frame and carried it over to the bed.

‘I’ve always liked this one best,’ Vera said fondly. She smiled down at her father, sitting with one hand propped under his chin, gazing back at her with his shrewd and penetrating look.

‘That’s the way I remember Daddy. Sitting at his desk downstairs, looking just like that, thinking about things.’

CHAPTER 2

It was past noon by the time Doctor Tredgold’s car halted outside the front door of Lynwood.

‘Mrs Foster can be very difficult when she chooses,’ the doctor said to Miss Jordan as they went up the stairs. ‘But I’m sure there’s no need for me to tell you not to pamper her.’ He had formed a high regard for Miss Jordan’s competence.

‘Mrs Foster’s very much inclined to make the most of this sciatica,’ he added. ‘Nothing she likes better than being waited on and fussed over.’ A widower now for many years, with his own burden of aches and pains to bear as the years ground remorselessly on, he had less and less sympathy these days with any attitude on the part of his patients that remotely resembled hypochondria.

‘I’ve already mentioned that I’m thinking of leaving in a few days,’ Miss Jordan said.

He nodded energetically. ‘That’s the ticket. Force her to get up. She’d stay in bed till Christmas if we let her.’

They reached the door of Vera’s bedroom. ‘Come now,’ Tredgold said to his patient with forceful joviality as soon as Miss Jordan showed him into the room. ‘Why aren’t you sitting outside on this beautiful day?’ Vera made no reply; her face took on a mutinous look.

The curtains were partly drawn together against the dazzling sunlight and the doctor crossed to the window and drew them fully apart. He glanced out at the valley lying tranquil in the sparkling air.

‘We won’t get many more days like this before winter,’ he said. ‘You should make the most of them.’

Miss Jordan withdrew to the door. ‘I’ll be just along the corridor if you should need me,’ she said as she went out and closed the door behind her.

The doctor stood looking out at the hill opposite, at the porcupine crest of trees along the ridge, the green tints shading from palest lime to deepest olive.

‘I’ve always loved that view.’ He was silent for a moment, remembering how he had stood there in Duncan Murdoch’s time; Duncan had been a valued friend. He gave a little sigh and turned back to the bed with a softer expression.

‘Is the leg really painful still?’ he asked with a little grin. ‘Or are you laying it on – just a bit?’

Vera closed her eyes. ‘The pain comes and goes. It’s still pretty bad at times.’ She opened her eyes. ‘I need some more of the white tablets.’

He picked up the bottle and looked at the few remaining tablets. ‘You’re taking a lot of these,’ he said with mild reproof. ‘You should take them only when you find it necessary, not three times a day like clockwork.’

She pulled a little face, placatory, like a child. ‘I don’t take them as often as that. But you can see I need some more, they’re almost finished.’

He gave her a considering glance. She returned his gaze. Her expression changed to a bolder, defiant stare. ‘I’m not a baby,’ she said with spirit.

His eyes held hers for a few seconds, then he shrugged. ‘Oh, very well.’

Irritability rose inside him but he pushed it sternly down. He had two more calls to make before lunch and already he felt worn out. ‘You can get Alma to call in for the tablets this afternoon.’ He pulled out a pad and began to write.

‘It’s Alma’s day for Cannonbridge,’ Vera said. ‘She won’t be back here till tomorrow morning. This is the night she sleeps at Pinetrees.’

‘Oh, yes.’ It was at Tredgold’s suggestion that Vera had offered the old couple at Pinetrees this use of Alma’s services. ‘It’s very good of you to let her go there,’ he said. ‘I know they appreciate it.’

He leaned down and patted her hand, gave her a little indulgent smile, remembering her all at once as a child with long fair pigtails and bright blue eyes, running up to him, laughing, catching at his hand.

‘Take your time,’ he said, against the judgment of his professional nature. ‘If you want to take it easy for another day or two, stay where you are.’

He looked at his watch. ‘You can ask Miss Jordan to call in for the tablets. Any time after four.’

The kitchen clock struck two. ‘You go and get yourself ready,’ Miss Jordan said to Alma Driscoll. ‘I’ll finish the washing-up for you.’ She smiled and her face at once looked younger and less sombre, almost handsome. ‘You can trust me to do it properly,’ she added lightly. ‘I’ve done it often enough in my life.’

Alma unfastened her vast gingham apron and turned from the sink. ‘Oh, that is kind of you,’ she said with eager acceptance. She hung the apron up behind the door and dried her hands on the roller towel. ‘I do appreciate it.’

She’d come across more than one temporary lady help from staff agencies. Half of them couldn’t wash a teacup and the other half wouldn’t dream of lowering themselves by attempting it.

Miss Jordan picked up a pair of rubber gloves and smoothed them on. ‘It really is nothing,’ she said as she ran fresh hot water into the basin.

‘Don’t forget Mrs Foster’s porridge,’ Alma reminded her. Though she was sure Miss Jordan didn’t really need reminding, she’d made the porridge very nicely the last time Alma had slept out at Pinetrees.

‘No, I won’t forget. You go off and enjoy yourself, don’t worry about a thing.’ Miss Jordan began to wash the dishes.

Alma hurried up the back staircase to her comfortable bedroom at the rear of the house. She performed a swift but careful toilet.

I’ll be quite sorry to see Miss Jordan leave when Mrs Foster’s downstairs again, she thought as she sat at her dressing table, arranging her curly auburn hair into its most becoming style. Miss Jordan was very efficient but she didn’t put your back up like some did by making a song and dance about her efficiency.

And she was happy to take her meals in the kitchen with Alma, none of that irritating nonsense of having to lay a single place in the dining room or run about after her with dainty trays. What was more, she managed to be companionable without being either inquisitive or secretive.

Alma pulled on her tweed coat. No need for a hat today, thank goodness, nice and warm, no breeze to speak of. She was proud of her abundant springing hair and never covered it up without good cause.

She gave herself a comprehensive glance in the long mirror of the wardrobe. Not bad for thirty-five, you could see many worse in a day’s march.

She picked up her handbag and went gaily off down the stairs and into the kitchen to pick up the basket she had put ready earlier.

‘Have a good time,’ Miss Jordan said with a friendly smile.

‘I certainly will.’ Alma went out through the side door into the sweet-smelling afternoon.

She shifted the basket into a comfortable position on her arm. As well as her library books the basket held some socks and vests she had laundered for her uncle, a wedge of dark moist fruit-cake and an apple pie just the way he liked it, sweet and juicy, with a hint of cinnamon.

Alma and her uncle got on very well. Matt was her mother’s older brother. Alma had never had any father worth mentioning, she had only the vaguest idea of who he might have been and didn’t greatly care. It had never seemed to bother her mother and Alma saw little reason why it should bother her.

Her mother had died in middle life from some sudden and furious disease of the blood, at just about the time when Alma had come to the end of her own disastrous foray into matrimony.

In the general upheaval and desolation Alma had arrived on her uncle’s doorstep. He took her in, was very good to her in those wretched weeks, and she never forgot it.

Matt had done odd jobs up at Lynwood ever since he was a lad and it was he who suggested the Lynwood job to Alma. It was not long after Gerald Foster’s marriage to Vera, and Matt knew that Mr Foster was looking for someone to help in the house.

In Duncan Murdoch’s day the Lynwood kitchen had been ruled over by Hetty Attwood, an old-fashioned and increasingly eccentric domestic who had originally been engaged by his wife when they were first married.

Mrs Murdoch didn’t survive the birth of Vera and in the bleak time that followed, Hetty Attwood was utterly indispensable to Duncan Murdoch. He would never have dreamed of repaying her by sending her packing in her declining and deteriorating years.

Gerald Foster well knew the domestic situation at Lynwood long before he married Vera; in the course of his work for Murdoch he was often in the house. He was well aware that Hetty Attwood was not only far from competent but also by no means completely honest in her household dealings.

Vera turned a blind eye to these shortcomings – Hetty had been her father’s servant and, before that, the servant of her parents, and so must not be judged by ordinary standards.

But these sentiments weighed not at all with Gerald. He intended to get rid of Hetty as soon as he could decently manage it after moving into Lynwood as master of the house.

As a first step he set about finding a replacement for Hetty. Matt Bateman mentioned that his niece, young, energetic and competent, was looking for a post.

Gerald managed to persuade Vera that they should take Alma on to assist Hetty, but he couldn’t prevail on her to give Hetty her marching orders.

It was a good seven years after Alma Driscoll first stepped over the Lynwood threshold before Gerald finally managed to bid goodbye to Hetty – with a suitable and indeed generous financial provision, in recognition of her long service.

Alma now reigned over the Lynwood household. If extra help was needed it was brought in temporarily and with her agreement. She was well satisfied with her present situation.

She hummed a tune as she walked briskly along the road towards her uncle’s cottage. She reached Matt’s gate and walked up the neat path between trim flower-borders to the front door. She turned the handle and went in. Half an hour’s pleasant chat with her uncle, leaving in good time to catch the bus outside the pub on the village green.

Three quarters of an hour later she stepped on board the bus. She settled back luxuriously into her seat at the rear.

She looked forward with pleasure to her outing. A ten-minute ride would deposit her in the centre of Cannonbridge, bustling and lively on market day. A good prowl round the shops – mustn’t forget Mrs Foster’s colour shampoo, light golden blonde.

Pity Mrs Foster was going grey so early, she’d had such pretty soft pale hair when Alma first saw her – must be eight years or more now, she calculated with fleeting surprise at the swift passage of the years.

After the shopping, a long browse in the public library, stocking up with the historical romances she loved. Then she would call in, as she did every Thursday, at a little terrace house in an Edwardian crescent behind the library, to have a substantial high tea with Rosie Trewin, a friend she had known for some years. Rosie used to work at the pub by the green in Abberley, but she’d left a couple of years ago to marry a Cannonbridge man; they now had a six-month-old baby.

Alma opened her handbag and took out a fruit pastille; she popped it into her mouth. At the prospect of the afternoon and evening before her she sighed with pleasure. What more could anyone reasonably ask?

Seventy miles away in Lowesmoor a church clock struck three quarters. Gerald Foster paused for a moment and glanced at his watch, then he resumed his careful pacing of the building site, the third of four he had driven over to see.

He always inspected and assessed on his own, couldn’t tolerate an agent at his heels, interfering with the keen flow of calculation through his brain.

Gerald considered Lowesmoor a vigorous, thrusting town, poised for expansion, definitely a place to invest in. He left the site and climbed a small eminence nearby in order to view the terrain from above. No insoluble problems, no difficulties with access, altogether satisfactory.

He went back to his car and drove slowly about the district, gauging the tone and character of the neighbourhood. When he was satisfied, he found a phone kiosk and rang the agent’s office. It was now almost half past five.

‘I’m ready to talk terms,’ he told the agent. ‘What about dinner at my hotel this evening?’ Tomorrow was already mapped out and Gerald wasn’t a man to watch with any pleasure the long hours of evening slip unprofitably away in idle recreation.

‘Good idea,’ the agent said, and they arranged a time. The agent was a bright young fellow, a bachelor, still under thirty.

He pondered for an instant the possibility of suggesting to Foster a visit after dinner to one of the local night spots. There was a new place of which he’d heard encouraging reports, dim lights and bright girls. But after a moment’s reflection he dismissed the idea. Foster didn’t strike him as the type to welcome the suggestion.

‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘The lounge of the Falcon. A quarter to eight.’

At eight o’clock Alma Driscoll and her friend Rosie Trewin left Rosie’s little terrace house and went along to the local pub for an hour or two while Rosie’s husband obligingly kept an eye on the baby.

At half past ten Alma caught the last bus back to Abberley and made her way along the lane to Pinetrees. She looked in on the old couple, made them hot drinks, settled them down for the night and went off to bed, well pleased with her day.

Next morning she was awake early; she never slept late. By a quarter to seven she was washed and dressed, had tidied her bedroom and was on her way downstairs to make tea and take it up to the old folk.

She wasn’t required to make breakfast or help them to wash and dress. A woman came in from the village at half past seven on alternate Friday mornings to see to all that and to keep an eye on things till the housekeeper returned on the mid-morning bus.

Alma carried the tray up to the main bedroom and knocked softly on the door. They were already awake, looking forward to a cup of tea.

Promptly at half past seven the village woman arrived and Alma was free to go back to Lynwood.

It was a fine morning, clear and mild, with a slight rustle of breeze. She met no one as she walked along the road, but the village was already stirring. She could hear the engine of a farm machine starting up, the lowing of cows, someone calling a dog across the fields.

She rounded a bend in the road and came in sight of Lynwood. The tall mass of the house was sharply outlined against the pearly blue sky. How well it looks standing up there, Alma thought, as she often did, admiring the elegant proportions, the lovely classic lines.

The lights were on in the front bedroom; no other lights showed in the house.

She quickened her pace. Mrs Foster was probably lying awake, restless after a poor night’s sleep, finding time dragging till the door opened and someone carried in a welcome tray of tea.

Not much hope of the poor lady getting an early cup from Miss Jordan, Alma reflected; Miss Jordan was not the earliest of risers. It was usually eight o’clock before she showed her face downstairs, though always neat and trim when she did appear.

Alma reached the Pritchards’ cottage, the nearest dwelling to Lynwood. Ned Pritchard was a retired farmworker, a widower, living with his son Bob who worked as a relief milker in the area. Ned still did a certain amount of work as a jobbing gardener and regularly put in a couple of days a week at Lynwood.

As Alma went past the cottage Bob Pritchard came out of an outhouse, carrying a bucket. He raised his hand and called out a greeting. She waved in reply and gave him a casual friendly word.

She went on up to the house and let herself in. Everything was quiet, no one stirring. She attended first to the cooker, glancing in at the oven to make sure the porridge was nicely done, but clicked her tongue in irritation when she found the porridge wasn’t there.

Oh well, never mind, she thought after a moment. A nice pan of rolled oats wouldn’t take long to cook on top of the stove, Mrs Foster wouldn’t have to mind for once.

She set the pan on the stove, then put the kettle on to boil. She laid a tray and then at last took off her outdoor things. Mrs Foster’s shampoo, she remembered, and put it on the tray beside the milk jug.

A few minutes later she carried the tray quietly up the back stairs. No sound from Miss Jordan’s room – she must still be sound asleep.

As she approached Mrs Foster’s bedroom she caught the sound of the radio, playing music. The poor lady had probably been lying awake goodness knew how long, with only the make-believe jollity of the disc jockey for company.

She knocked at the door. No reply. She knocked again, more loudly. Still no reply. She frowned, knocked again, even more loudly, without result.

She put her mouth against the door panel and said, ‘Mrs Foster – it’s me, Alma. I’ve brought you some tea.’ Only the sound of the music came back to her, light and lilting. She tried the handle but the door was locked.

She set down the tray on a nearby table and went rapidly along the corridor into Mr Foster’s room. She crossed to the connecting door and tried the handle but it resisted her.

She rapped forcefully on the panel, calling out loudly and recklessly, ‘Mrs Foster! It’s me, Alma! Are you all right?’ Still no reply. The music ceased and a man’s voice began to speak, crisp and cheerful.

She ran out of the room and along the corridor, down a few steps and round a corner, to Miss Jordan’s room. There was no sound from within. She rapped loudly and without ceremony, calling out, ‘Miss Jordan! Are you awake?’

There was a stir from inside and Miss Jordan’s voice called back sleepily, ‘Is that you, Alma?’

Without more ado Alma went in. The curtains were still drawn together. In the half-light Miss Jordan began to raise herself from the pillows.

‘There’s something wrong,’ Alma said urgently. ‘Mrs Foster – I can’t make her hear. Her door’s locked.’

Miss Jordan came fully awake. She flung back the clothes and sprang out of bed. She dragged on a dressing-gown, thrust her feet into slippers.

‘I don’t like it,’ Alma said rapidly. ‘I can hear the radio playing. I knocked and knocked but she doesn’t answer.’

They left the room at a run. ‘I tried to get in,’ Alma said, ‘but the doors are locked. Both doors.’

They reached Mrs Foster’s room. Miss Jordan rattled the door handle, calling out, then she ran into Mr Foster’s room, followed by Alma. She tried again.

‘She tried to do something once before,’ Alma said. ‘Years ago. Before I came here. She took a lot of tablets.’

‘Is there another key?’ Miss Jordan said urgently. ‘To either door?’

Alma frowned fiercely down at the floor. ‘I can’t think of one. I can’t remember a spare key.’

‘Then we’ll have to get help. Someone to break the door down.’

‘The Pritchards,’ Alma said at once. ‘Down at the cottage. You go, I’ll stay here.’ Miss Jordan, slimly built, would be able to run a good deal faster than Alma.

Alma stayed by the bedroom door, keeping up the fruitless calling and knocking. It seemed an age before she again heard the sound of running.

Young Bob Pritchard came racing into view along the corridor. ‘Stand away!’ he ordered as he reached the door.

He sprang back against the opposite wall, then leapt forward at the door, striking it with his raised foot. The door creaked. He went back to the wall and sprang again with all his strength. This time the panel gave.

As he struggled to get the door open Alma saw his father, Ned Pritchard, still quick and active at seventy, appear round the bend in the corridor, with Miss Jordan behind him. A smell of burning oatmeal floated up from the kitchen. The porridge, Alma registered – it’s boiled over.

‘You’ve managed it, then,’ Ned called out as the door gave way. Alma followed Bob at a rush into the bedroom.

The lights were full on, the curtains drawn together. Beside the bed the radio played and sang.

Ned and Miss Jordan reached the door and came breathlessly in.

Mrs Foster was in a reclining position, leaning back against the lacy pillows. She wore a little jacket of peach-coloured satin over a nightdress of apricot chiffon. Her head had slipped to one side and her eyes were closed. Her face was peaceful, with a faint smile, as if she were sleeping. She looked young and pretty.

Her hands were relaxed on the lace coverlet. Under the fingers of one lay the silver-framed photograph of her father and under the fingers of the other a picture postcard.

Bob Pritchard leaned down and touched her forehead. With his other hand he circled her wrist. No pulse; she was icy cold. No one spoke. There was silence in the room except for the radio.

‘Shall I phone the doctor?’ Alma asked in a harsh breathless voice.

‘You’d better.’ Bob removed his hand from the wrist. ‘But she’s dead all right. Been dead for hours.’

He turned and switched off the radio. On the bedside table stood a tumbler holding a little water. Beside it a bottle of white tablets, two-thirds full.

Miss Jordan leaned across and felt the icy fingers. ‘I’m afraid you’re right.’ She gave a long trembling sigh.

‘She’s done it again,’ Ned Pritchard said from the foot of the bed.

They all turned to look at him. ‘She tried once before,’ he said. ‘When her father died.’

He gazed sadly down at her. She looked no older now than she’d done then, nine years ago that was, must be. ‘They found her in time then,’ he said. ‘They hushed it up. This time,’ he added without surprise, ‘she’s managed to pull it off.’

CHAPTER 3

The inquest on Vera Foster was opened and adjourned a few days after her death, the body released for burial within a week. The funeral was small and private, as quiet as it was possible to make it in the circumstances.

The resumed inquest was set down for a date three weeks after the funeral.

Shortly before lunch on a Tuesday afternoon towards the end of October, Detective-Chief Inspector Kelsey stood at the window of his office in the central police station in Cannonbridge. He stared out at the pouring rain.

‘The inquest on Mrs Foster this afternoon,’ he said to Detective Sergeant Lambert. ‘You can drop me there, say a quarter to three.’ He ran a hand over his springing hair, the colour of old carrots. ‘I’ll give you a ring when it’s over. You can come along and pick me up.’

‘It’ll be suicide, of course,’ Sergeant Lambert said. The enquiries into Mrs Foster’s death had proceeded along a straightforward path. Perfectly clear-cut case.

The Chief nodded. No suggestion of anything else. According to the medical report Mrs Foster had swallowed a fatal dose of pain-killing tablets at a time when her husband was sitting with a highly respectable estate agent in full view of several people in the lounge of the Falcon Hotel seventy miles away in Lowesmoor. She was dead before her husband said goodnight to the agent and went upstairs to bed.

The Chief peered out at the driving rain with bleak hostility. ‘Filthy day,’ he said irritably. Rainy weather never agreed with him. Made him sneeze. Something to do with atmospheric pressure, he thought vaguely, made the lining of his nose congested.

‘I detest October,’ he added sourly. What he really detested was inquests. And, in particular, inquests on suicides. They always made him feel horribly depressed.

He felt a sudden powerful yearning for something sweet to thrust into his mouth. It was now some time since he’d succeeded in giving up smoking and it was only rarely that he still felt the old primitive longing for the death-dealing cigarette.

He’d managed very well on bags of toffees and bars of chocolate but now it seemed that even the confectionery substitute was forbidden.

‘You’ve got to lose that,’ the doctor had said at his last checkup, slapping the roll of flesh that strove against the Chief Inspector’s waistband. ‘If you’ve got to run after a villain you’ll have a heart attack, like as not.’

‘I don’t run after villains any more,’ Kelsey said. ‘I let the lads chase about these days.’

‘Can’t rely on that,’ the doctor said without sympathy. ‘Never know your luck. You’ll drop down dead one of these days, I shouldn’t wonder.’

So now the soothing chocolate-covered peanuts were out, the cheering lumps of cracknel and nougat. Kelsey was reduced to biting through pencils and chewing the ends of ballpoint pens into distorted pulp.

His waistband had certainly slackened but his nerves had tautened. You can’t win, he thought, staring out at the relentless rain. If the heart attacks don’t get you, the ulcers will.

He turned abruptly from the window. ‘Don’t be late,’ he told Sergeant Lambert with vague menace.

Always a gathering of cranks and ghouls at an inquest. If he was forced to stand about waiting for the car he’d be an easy prey for every local nutter eager to dredge up old grievances and many another new one invented on the spot. ‘I phone you,’ he said to Lambert, in case the message still hadn’t got through, ‘you come running.’

Promptly at a quarter to three Sergeant Lambert dropped the Chief outside the Cannonbridge courthouse. Kelsey made his way inside, saying what had to be said as briefly as possible to official or semi-official faces here and there.

He took his seat alone, making it clear by the expression on his craggy features and the set of his powerful shoulders that he wasn’t seeking company.

A minute or two after he settled himself into his seat, Gerald Foster came into the courtroom. He looked pale and composed. But then he always looked pale and composed.

Kelsey watched him as he sat down. Until the recent enquiries he’d never spoken to Foster, although he knew who he was. In these unhappy dealings over the last few weeks he had found Foster direct and straightforward, easy to deal with.

Foster was considered locally to be a shrewd and soundly principled man of business. He was certainly respected in the community, although he lived quietly and took little part in local social activity.

Nor had the Chief Inspector ever met the late Mrs Foster, the subject of the inquest. As far as he could make out he had missed little. In the course of his enquiries the lady had come through to him as a right spoiled darling, a regular Daddy’s little girl.

Kelsey had been acquainted with Daddy. A decent old chap, Duncan Murdoch, old-fashioned even in his own day; wing collars, striped trousers, silver-headed cane. Could hardly blame him for making such a close companion of Vera, his only child, particularly when you remembered that his wife had died at Vera’s birth.

But Murdoch had certainly done his daughter no favour, he’d made her over-dependent on himself emotionally, made it difficult for her to form other relationships.

It had struck Kelsey in the course of his enquiries that Vera Foster seemed to have no close woman friend. Several women in the village of Abberley knew her, of course, but each in turn had said more or less, ‘Of course, I didn’t know her well, you couldn’t really say I was a friend, more an acquaintance.’ Certainly none of them seemed grief-stricken by her death, or even particularly moved or surprised by it.

The whole village, it appeared, had known of her earlier attempt to take her own life, when she had swallowed a large quantity of sleeping tablets prescribed for her father. There had been a strong attempt to hush it all up and the episode had certainly never reached Kelsey’s ears. But it had got about the village all the same.

I doubt if Vera would have married at all if her father hadn’t died, Kelsey ruminated. She was over thirty at the time of his death and had never, it seemed, had a boyfriend. She had gone about with her father – not that the pair of them went anywhere very much.

Easy to imagine how desperately she might have looked about after his sudden death for someone else to lean on – and there was no one but Gerald Foster.

She was lucky he was there, Kelsey reflected. In that unhappy time Foster was kind, helpful and sympathetic – according to the village. He wasn’t some adventurer blown in on a wind of chance, capable of springing ugly surprises later, he was well known to Vera, liked, trusted and esteemed by her father.

He was experienced in the business, an employee of several years’ standing, of proven worth, ready and able to take over the running, relieve her of worry.

And he was above all a single man, free to marry her.

If any part of that fortunate combination of circumstances had been different or absent, the Chief Inspector mused, Vera’s life might have taken a very different course nine years ago.

The Lynwood housekeeper, Alma Driscoll, and the two Pritchard men, old Ned and his son Bob, followed Gerald Foster into the courtroom a few minutes later. Probably been given a lift by Foster, Kelsey thought. But they preserved a deferential distance between themselves and Foster when they took their seats; the three of them ranged themselves together at the end of a row.

Edith Jordan came in now. She had stayed on at Lynwood for some days after Vera Foster’s death, to give what assistance she could. She had then been sent by the agency to another temporary post, that of assistant matron at Orchard House, a high-class boarding school for girls near Wychford, a small town ten miles to the west of Cannonbridge.

Kelsey’s eyes rested on Miss Jordan. She had a certain air of breeding, of natural elegance. She was dressed in a dark grey tailored suit with a white blouse and a small hat; she wore no make-up. Her whole appearance suggested native taste and refinement. She looked the kind who could be relied on to keep her head in an emergency. Certainly Doctor Tredgold thought highly of her.

Not what you would call attractive, Kelsey pondered, and yet her features and general aspect had nothing irregular or ill-proportioned about them.

I think it’s mainly because she gives the impression of having no interest in men, Kelsey concluded after a few moments’ thought. The absence of those vibrations makes a man think she’s not attractive – a woman might see her differently, he reflected.

He looked along the row to where Alma Driscoll sat glancing about with lively interest. Alma was shorter than Edith Jordan, plumper, with a far less lithe and supple figure. She had no real advantage in looks that you could put your finger on. True, she had a fine head of auburn hair, but then Miss Jordan had a good head of dark hair.

But any man would call Alma Driscoll attractive – probably, the Chief considered, because Alma found men attractive, was interested in them, didn’t disguise that interest.

Miss Jordan inclined her head politely towards Mr Foster, then she took her seat beside Alma Driscoll. She leaned forward and exchanged a word and a pleasant smile with the two Pritchard men, then she and Alma began to chat in hushed tones.

Foster remained staring ahead. It must be an ordeal for him, Kelsey thought, waiting for proceedings to begin, having to go through it all yet again, hearing the same painful story once more from successive lips.

Doctor Tredgold came hurrying up the courtroom steps only a couple of minutes before the town-hall clock struck three. He glanced over at Kelsey as he came in and gave him a friendly nod, then he sat down at a little distance from the Lynwood party.

Kelsey saw that the doctor’s face wore a look of slight unease. No mystery about the cause of that unease. Tredgold couldn’t be happy about the fact that he’d prescribed another bottle of pain-killing tablets for Mrs Foster, tablets which she made use of almost at once to take her own life, when he knew that she had once before attempted suicide.

True, that earlier attempt had been passed off at the time by all concerned as an accidental overdose, but Tredgold knew well enough what that meant.

Not that the Chief Inspector was disposed to be critical of the doctor. He’d come across him many times over the years. He liked and respected him, had always found him helpful, a man of integrity and sound professional ability.

Easy enough to say with hindsight that the character of the dead woman was known to Tredgold, that he could have prescribed the tablets in much smaller quantities or entrusted their care and use entirely to Miss Jordan.

But there had been only the one previous attempt at suicide and that was nine years ago at a time of sudden and highly unusual stress. And a doctor didn’t perform his work in some ideal society but in the real world where haste and overwork, forgetfulness and irritation, hunger and fatigue all played their part.

I certainly wouldn’t like to be held up to public censure for every error I’ve made over the years, Kelsey thought with a shudder.

The clock struck the hour. At all events Tredgold’s lucky with the coroner, Kelsey thought as the proceedings began.

The coroner was a retired doctor who knew Tredgold well, belonged to the same golf club. Not likely to strive for press headlines by making noble utterances about the duties and responsibilities of the medical profession.

The afternoon wore on with no surprises. There were sympathetic looks for Gerald Foster as he gave his evidence. He stood looking straight ahead, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, his slight figure held stiffly upright.

Yes, he had known of his wife’s earlier attempt to take her own life. He had been one of the two people who had found her on that occasion, it was he who broke down the bedroom door and summoned the doctor. That was before he and Vera were married, when he had been an employee of her late father.

Yes, the marriage had been happy, he would call it very happy. He and his wife were well suited, there were no worries, financial or otherwise.

No, it had not seemed foolish to leave the tablets within reach of his wife. She had been subject to attacks of sciatica for some years, had had access to pain-killing tablets during all that time, with no untoward occurrence. And the earlier overdose was nine years before, in most exceptional circumstances. He had never had reason to suppose there would be any repetition.

He had phoned his wife as he always did when he was away, he rang her just after nine in the evening, from the Falcon Hotel in Lowesmoor. She had sounded very much as usual, she said nothing to cause him alarm.

No, she had left no letter – nor had she left any letter in the previous attempt. The card which lay under her fingers was one she had always treasured; it was the last written communication she had received from her father, a postcard he had sent her shortly before his death, on one of his rare absences from Lynwood.

The card was normally kept in a drawer of a small desk in her bedroom. The last words of the message had been heavily underlined. No, they had not been underlined by Duncan Murdoch when he wrote the card, nor had they been underlined the last time Foster had seen the card, which he thought must have been three or four months ago.

His wife would sometimes take the card out and read it, would talk to him about her father, and so on. Yes, he would definitely have remembered if the words had been underlined, he would have noticed it, would have commented on the fact to his wife.

He had no doubt that it was his wife who had underlined the words just before she took the fatal overdose. The pen she must have used lay on the bedside table. The sentence she had underlined read: See you very soon, my dearest.

There was a hush in the courtroom as Foster spoke the words. He stood for some moments with his head bowed.

Could he in any way account for his wife’s action in taking the fatal dose? the coroner asked gently.

‘I can only suppose,’ Foster answered in a tone of profound regret, ‘that the sciatica was more depressing than I realized. And the tablets must also have been more lowering than I realized. My wife was a woman of impulse. And she didn’t like—’ he hesitated – ‘she didn’t like the fact that she was no longer a young girl.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘She found it difficult to accept.’

Yes, he was some years younger than his wife. Not that this had made or ever would have made any difference to his feeling for her. But yes, it could have heightened her own sense of the passing of her youth, she certainly never liked to think of his being younger than herself, she would refer to it sometimes when she was in low spirits. Yes, he would agree that she could be fairly described as an emotional woman.

No, there was no spare key to either of the two doors leading into his wife’s bedroom. Or at least not to his knowledge.

Miss Jordan took the stand next. She gave her evidence in a calm and precise manner.

No, she had known nothing of the earlier attempt at suicide by Mrs Foster. She had been engaged some two weeks before Mrs Foster’s death to assist the lady during her illness. She had no previous acquaintance with Mrs Foster or with anyone else in the household, she had never in fact set foot in Abberley before going to Lynwood.

She had given Mrs Foster one of the tablets with a beaker of drinking chocolate – Mrs Foster’s usual night-time beverage – at a quarter to ten, and then settled her down for the night. She returned the bottle of tablets to the shelf in the little wall cabinet over the wash-basin in the bedroom. This was where such bottles were normally kept.

Yes, in her opinion Mrs Foster was perfectly capable of getting out of bed and walking across to the cabinet and then to the desk. She had thought Mrs Foster a good deal better than she would admit.

She had formed the impression that Mrs Foster was a lady who liked a little extra attention, didn’t object to staying in bed, was perhaps inclined to remain there longer than was necessary. She had said as much to Doctor Tredgold on his last visit; he had not disagreed with her.

Yes, looking back now, she would agree that perhaps this attitude of Mrs Foster’s could have been an indication of depression. And yes, she would agree now with Mr Foster’s opinion that the sciatica could have been a good deal more lowering than any of them had realized.

Mrs Foster had asked for the photograph of her father earlier in the day, had indeed fallen asleep in the course of her morning nap holding the photograph. Miss Jordan had later returned it to its usual place on top of the dressing-chest.

No, Mrs Foster had not again asked her for the photograph during the evening. She must have got out of bed and fetched it after Miss Jordan had left her for the night.

Miss Jordan had never seen the postcard before, nor did she know of its existence. Mrs Foster had never shown it to her or mentioned it.

She had heard no sound in the night, had not been disturbed. She had been tired, had gone to bed as soon as she had settled Mrs Foster. She had fallen asleep at once, had slept soundly till wakened next morning by Mrs Driscoll knocking on her bedroom door.

No, she had seen and observed nothing amiss in the domestic atmosphere at Lynwood. She had thought the marriage happy and Mr Foster an attentive and affectionate husband.

Ned Pritchard, smart in his best navy-blue suit and pale blue shirt, wasn’t called to give evidence – to his deep disappointment. His son Bob was duly called and in the eyes of his proud father did well, spoke up clearly, told what he knew, didn’t stumble or rattle on.

Yes, all the lights were on when he broke down the door of Mrs Foster’s bedroom. Both doors to the room were locked; both keys had been removed from the locks and lay on top of the dressing-chest in Mrs Foster’s bedroom.

No, he saw no letter, though of course he didn’t go searching round the room. Just the postcard and the photograph, as if Mrs Foster had been holding one in each hand at the last.

When Doctor Tredgold took the stand he looked old and tired. He had been called out at four in the morning to a patient in the next village who was suffering from a violent gall-bladder attack.

When the doctor returned home he didn’t go back to bed, knowing from experience that he wouldn’t be able to sleep again. He had stayed up, dealing with paperwork until the start of his normal working day. He felt now in an exhausted, dreamlike state. While waiting to be called he had difficulty in keeping his eyes open.

The old boy really ought to retire, the reporter from the local paper thought without sympathy, himself a bright lad of twenty-five, still under the illusion that his own vigorous youth was under some kind of exceptional protection and would last for ever.

The coroner, looking at his old friend, listening to his account, remembered a time or two during his own years in general practice when he had taken the stand to give evidence in not very dissimilar cases.

And a time or two when he had been lucky not to have been called. And a great many times when he had felt at three o’clock in the afternoon after a long and semi-sleepless night and difficult morning, very much as Doctor Tredgold looked now.

The doctor gave his evidence in a flat clear tone. Yes, he knew that Mrs Foster – at that time of course still Miss Vera Murdoch – had suffered an overdose of sleeping tablets on the day of her father’s funeral. He had been summoned to treat her.

No, it had never been represented to him as an attempt at suicide. It had been described, both by the lady herself and those connected with her, as an accidental overdose arising from fatigue, strain, grief, and so on. No, he had had no difficulty in accepting this account of what had happened.

It was several years ago and the circumstances of Mrs Foster’s life had very much changed since then. He had felt she was living a normal life with every chance of stability and well-being. He believed she was happily married and had an excellent husband.

Yes, he had from time to time treated her for nervous upsets, bouts of insomnia and the like, but these minor distresses were in his experience very common among ladies, particularly childless ladies no longer in their first youth.

No, he certainly hadn’t looked on her as a potential suicide risk when he prescribed for her sciatica. No, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask Miss Jordan to take charge of all medicines.

Even if it had occurred to him he wouldn’t have considered it a very practical proposition. After Miss Jordan left – what then? Was he to see that every pill and tablet in the house was locked up, that only Mr Foster or Miss Driscoll had the key?

No reasonable medical colleague could quarrel with that attitude, the coroner reflected as the doctor left the stand. He well knew the fusses, wheedlings, complaints, of which these verge-of-middle-age females were capable; no family doctor could stand up to them for long.

And if Tredgold had withheld the tablets – the shops were full of aspirins and half a dozen other pills and concoctions that could be lethal if taken in a large enough dose. There were such things as razor-blades, knives, guns, high windows and road traffic. Over the years the coroner had encountered all the ways in which determined persons can end their own existence.

Alma Driscoll gave evidence next. A niece of old Matt Bateman, Chief Inspector Kelsey had discovered. Bateman was, as it were, known to the local force. There had been a police constable stationed in Abberley village until a few years ago and in those days Matt’s rural activities resulted from time to time in little chats between the constable and Matt. But Matt had never actually appeared in court on any charge.

Alma had taken great pains with her appearance for this public occasion. After a good deal of thought she had regretfully decided that it was only fitting she should wear a hat.

But in order not to obscure the full glory of her auburn hair, freshly washed and set, gleaming under the courtroom lights – for the afternoon continued dull and rainy – she had put on her smallest piece of headgear. This was her wedding and christening hat, no more than a few ribbons and flowers with a bloom of veiling. It gave her appearance a light-hearted holiday air.

The coroner questioned her in some detail about Mrs Foster’s state of mind, in particular during the weeks immediately before her death.

Well, yes, Alma had to admit, Mrs Foster was more moody than usual during that time, more given to sudden fits of ill-temper.

Yes, the sciatica did seem to pull her down, but then it always did; Alma had got used to this, expected it, wasn’t upset by it, paid it little attention.

And she had got used to Mrs Foster’s outbursts and tricky temperament. Mrs Foster was a highly-strung lady, Alma knew how to manage her well enough, didn’t let it bother her overmuch. It was all a matter of knowing how to handle people. She had a good situation at Lynwood, took such things in her stride, counted herself lucky to have such a good home.

But yes, looking back, she would agree that it was very likely that Mrs Foster had been rather more depressed than Alma had realized.

She hesitated, then braced her shoulders and glanced up at the coroner with an air of being about to say something she felt must be said.

‘The way I look at it now, and with all due respect to all concerned—’ She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her coat and began to twist it between her fingers. ‘I think we’d all got into the habit of treating the poor lady as if she was exaggerating – me as well as everybody else.’ She gave a quick dab at her eyes. ‘As if she was making half of it up.’

She began to make a little crying sound, but talked on through it. ‘We all behaved as if she wasn’t really in all that much pain, we never took it seriously.’ She began to cry in earnest.

The coroner leaned forward, told her not to distress herself, asked if she would like a glass of water but she shook her head. ‘Just because she was a bit spoiled,’ she said in a little rush. ‘I’m sure now she suffered a lot more than any of us thought.’