he would take on dealings with her himself.
“See what you can get out of the woman,” Cowgill had said. “Let her think we’re sharing information, if she wants to play detective. String her along a bit, but don’t tell her anything.” Keith reflected that he hadn’t got anything of real interest to share anyway, and could not resist a small smile. If DI Cowgill thought he could handle Lois, good luck to him!
“Firstly, how does your week go, Lois?” said Keith, in his best official voice.
“Monday, Rixes; Tuesday, Barratts; Wednesday, Nurse Surfleet; Thursday, the vicar, Peter White; and Friday the Baers. Three hours at each, starting at 9 o’clock.”
“Excellent,” said Keith, and Janice’s pen moved rapidly across her notebook. “All the facts, and in good order. If only all witnesses were as orderly.”
“I’m not a witness,” said Lois flatly. “I didn’t see who killed Gloria Hathaway. I wasn’t even at that meeting. Not for the likes of me, you know. Open Minds is for those with minds, and cleaners don’t have minds.”
“Come off it, Lois,” said Keith reprovingly. “That kind of comment is of no use to a police enquiry. Just stick to answering my questions with the facts.”
“Oh, shut up!” said Lois, losing patience. “I agreed to come here to exchange some information, and that’s what we’ll do.” Janice Britton nodded vigorously, smiling sympathetically. Lois continued firmly, “So what have you got so far? Not a lot, is my guess.”
Keith put down his papers and Janice her notebook, and all three relaxed. Keith started again. “We’ve taken statements from every woman who was at the meeting, and corroborating statements from their families; times they set off, came back, whether they went on their own to the meeting, or joined up with friends, that sort of thing. Nothing untoward there.”
“The speaker that night was an old woman, wasn’t she?” said Lois. Keith then assured her that they had followed her up and she’d been there in front of twenty pairs of eyes, whilst in the next room poor Gloria had met her terrified end.
“Didn’t they hear anything?” Janice asked this obvious question, because it seemed strange that in a roomful of women listening politely to a quiet-voiced, elderly Land Girl, no sounds of alarm or struggle had been heard.
Keith shook his head. “Some of them said there was the usual rumble from the urn. Seems it’s an ancient old crate of a thing, difficult to control. They get it up to boiling, then leave it on low until they make the tea. But it goes on rumbling and bubbling, so they say. Fills the kitchen with steam.”
“What?” said Lois, looking up sharply.
“
“What’s that you said about the steam?”
“Fills the kitchen, they said. Especially on cold nights. Nothing remarkable about that, is there, Lois?” Keith was dangerously near his patronising tone again, and Lois frowned.
“Nothin’ at all,” she said. “Except she wouldn’t’ve seen him – or her – coming, would she. Not if the steam was thick.”
“Ah,” said Keith. Janice began jotting in her notebook again.
“So who else’ve you talked to, apart from the women and their families?” Lois was beginning to feel much more confident. She saw that already she knew a lot more than they did, all in all. Not much they could add, she suspected, but it was worth going on with it for a bit.
Keith felt uncomfortable. Tables seemed to have been turned on him in some way, and he answered Lois reluctantly. “We are taking a list of village residents one by one,” he said. “Street by street. Amazing what turns up, with patient investigation.”
“Meanwhile,” said Janice treacherously, “the murderer may well have been busy covering his tracks.”
“Could be in Australia by now,” said Lois, and burst out laughing. “Oh, come on, Keith,” she added. “Anything juicy emerged yet?”
“Well,” he answered huffily, racking his brains for something Lois would consider juicy. “It may be nothing to do with the murder, but one of the neighbours saw someone walking up the footpath that goes behind Miss Hathaway’s and Nurse Surfleet’s cottages, but just assumed it was one of the women going to Open Minds.”
“Where does the footpath end up?” said Lois. “I know it goes along the back of the gardens.”
“At the village hall,” said Keith, and shifted a little in his seat. “But it doesn’t have any lighting, so the neighbour couldn’t say who it was.”
“Well,” said Lois. “It might be interesting, or, as you say, it could just be one of the Open Minds women… though wouldn’t they think twice about going along there in the pitch dark?”
They had a cup of coffee then, and Keith asked Lois several times if she had noticed anything odd going on in the houses she cleaned, or had overheard any worrying conversations. But Lois side-stepped his questions, revealing nothing of much use.
Finally Keith rose. “Well, better be getting back to the station,” he said, “I must report back to DI Cowgill. Anyway, thank you, Lois,” he said. “You have been most helpful.” He wasn’t quite sure about this, particularly when it actually came down to anything new he could tell the Inspector.
She glared at him. “Oh, I dunno. None of us knows who did it, do they? Could’ve been Dr Rix, or Prof Godwin…or then again, the Reverend…or Mr Baer…or even Nurse Surfleet, when you think how strong she has to be in her job…”
Janice was smiling broadly, and even Keith began to laugh. “All right, all right,” he said. “Anyway, let’s all keep in touch. Sharing info can only be a good thing, don’t you agree, Lois?”
She nodded, but had doubts about just how much she would share with Police Constable Keith Simpson, or, indeed, how much he was willing or able to tell her.
¦
It was Derek’s idea to have a family Christmas shopping trip to the new mall outside town. It was a mammoth building, all plate glass and Corinthian pillars, and was already very popular. The official opening had been in September, but Lois and family had not yet seen it. “Just a temptation to spend more money than you’ve got,” Lois had said when Josie and the boys had pursued a sustained campaign. All their friends had been, they said. They were the only ones who hadn’t.
“It’s got birds flying about, Mum, and real trees,” said Jamie, as if this nod towards rurality would convince her. “Real birds, pretty ones.”
Lois had laughed. “With real bird shit all over the place, I suppose,” she said. “Better take hats,” she added, when Derek finally persuaded her.
Saturday was probably the worst day to go, but it was the only one they could manage as a family, and as they drove round and round in convoy, nose to tail, looking for a parking space, Lois’s heart sank. Douglas and the others were packed into the back of Derek’s van, and she and Josie squashed together on the bench seat in front. It was raining steadily outside, and the windows had steamed up, the demister unable to cope.
“Look! There’s a place!” said Douglas.
“Disabled space,” said Derek.
“Oh, for God’s sake, just drive into it,” said Lois in desperation. “Ten to one nobody’ll check. We shall never get in there if we don’t park soon.” She felt sick in the airless van, but Derek shook his head and drove on until they finally saw someone leaving and moved in quickly. Lois opened the door and struggled out. She drew in deep gulps of wet, fume-laden air, and then helped gather the rest together.
An hour later, Lois had to admit that it was not nearly so bad as she had expected. She and Josie had gone off on their own, while Derek and the boys had headed for the sports shops. In the large central hall it was spacious and, though packed with hundreds of shoppers and sightseers, it seemed airy and light. A magical Christmas display had been set up and queues had formed for a small train which crawled its way in and out of small houses in a scaled-down Swiss village, snow-covered and glittering in the lights, with animated characters from favourite children’s stories waving and bowing in their mechanically good-humoured way.
“Come on, Josie,” said Lois, dragging her away. “You’re too old for that! Let’s get a cup of tea and rest our feet.” They’d done most of the shopping on their list, and needed a break.
As they turned to walk away from the crowds, Lois heard Josie gasp, and then a voice said, “Hi, there, Josie! Fancy seeing you here. How’re y’doing?” Josie had stopped dead and her cheeks were fiery.
“Hello,” said Lois, collecting her wits. “Who’s this then, Josie?” She did not recognize the lad, but a moment later she knew.
