? Terror on Tuesday ?
Thirty-Nine
Hazel Reading had dropped Josie off in Long Farnden, and called in to make sure Gran was there and that everything was going smoothly with Derek. She was expecting to find Lois. “Gone over to Waltonby,” said Derek. “You’ll probably meet her. She was going to that house where the galloping major lived. The house agents want it cleaned ready for sale.”
“
“Perhaps Lois thought you’d got enough to do,” said Gran placatingly. Privately, she agreed with Hazel. It was obvious. Still, no doubt Lois had her reasons, and it was Gran’s job to back her up. “She’ll explain, I expect,” she said, as Hazel left, still puzzled.
As she pulled up outside her house, she saw Lois’s car. She was still there, then. There was another vehicle, too. An old taxi, with lettering badly painted over. She looked at it curiously, not recognizing it as a regular in the village. Before she opened her car door, someone began to get out of it. Hazel recognized the figure at once. A burly, bald-headed man, with shoulders like a bull. She tumbled out of her car as quickly as possible, and began to walk towards him. His eyes were on the major’s house, and she almost reached him before he turned and saw her. “Bloody hell!” he said, “Not you again!” He wrenched open the taxi door, crashed into the driving seat and started the engine with a dreadful rasp. Then he was away, his foot down hard to achieve only a modest exit, and disappeared.
Hazel thought of following him, but decided her priority was to check on Lois. Had the Gorilla just arrived, or was he making a second check on whatever he had found? She pushed her way up to the major’s door, noticed the open windows and knew that Lois was still there, dead or alive. She stepped carefully through the kitchen, avoiding slimy patches, and then stopped. She was more or less sure that that was Lois’s voice. But if the Gorilla had been around, maybe J. Murphy was still on the scene. She waited in silence, and then Lois clumped down the stairs and saw her.
“Hazel! For God’s sake, why didn’t you answer?”
“Not sure it was you, Mrs M.” Hazel hesitated. Should she tell Lois about the Gorilla, or would it alarm her unnecessarily? No, Lois had to know, in order to watch her back from now on. Since the unsavoury pair had apparently disappeared from the area, she sensed Lois had relaxed. Well, they were back, and now was clearly not the time to be off guard.
“Oh Lord…are you sure it was him?” Lois sat down heavily on the stairs.
“Certain,” said Hazel. “Though how he knew you were here, I can’t think.
“Damn and blast,” said Lois fervently. “I’d given up watching out for them. Thanks, love, for scaring him off.”
Hazel suggested she should fetch a cup of tea for them both from next door, and then they could decide what to do. She did not ask Lois any questions, thinking that answers would probably emerge in a chat. “Better lock the door behind me,” she said, “and shut the ground-floor windows. You never know.”
When she returned, Lois had cleared a space in the scruffy sitting room, and they sat down gingerly on rickety chairs. “You’d never think he lived like a pig in shit, not from seeing him all dressed up at the pub, would you?” said Hazel, looking round. “Have you made a start? Need a hand? I don’t have to be at Mrs Jordan’s until this afternoon.”
Lois thought for a minute and drank her tea slowly. “Well,” she said, seeing the mug shaking in her hand, “perhaps it would be a good idea if we do an hour or so together. Break the back of it. Then I can do the rest myself. You’re pretty stretched at the moment.” They chatted about the need to employ more staff and Lois sounded out Hazel about the future.
“I’m happy as I am at the moment,” said Hazel. “I can’t leave Mum on her own until they sort out who killed Dad, an’ that…” Lois nodded. She asked how Josie had shaped up, and Hazel said fine, she took after her mother and knew her own mind. Then she changed the subject quickly. “Have you looked around?” she asked. Lois told her about the mirror room, the exercise stuff and the potions in the bathroom. She did not mention the porn under the stairs. “What a pathetic idiot,” Hazel said.
“So long as that’s all he was,” said Lois, and Hazel looked at her sharply.
“What d’you mean?” she said.
“Well, you don’t get killed for being a pathetic idiot,” Lois replied.
“Oh, he was a nasty piece of work, we all knew that,” said Hazel cheerfully. “My dad found out quite a lot about him, and was always threatening to sort him out. But it was all bluster, like a lot of the things Dad said. Violence began at home with him. And stayed there,” she added, her face closing up.
“What did he find out?” said Lois.
“Oh, stuff about him changing his name – his real name was Smith – and how he’d never been in the army and all that major thing was a fraud. In fact, everything about him was a fraud, I reckon. He’d come on all flirty and heavy an’ that in the pub, but I never heard that he’d actually done anything. Probably run like hell. That sort always do!”
“Was he in on the drugs scene?” said Lois bluntly.
Hazel shook her head. “Not that I ever heard,” she said. “Mind you, I kept conversation light. Prue used to chat to him a bit, but she didn’t like him and I don’t think he ever gave her anything.”
“Nothing to do with Joanne Murphy and the theatre, then?”
Again Hazel shook her head. “Well, we all know J. Murphy was supplying, and the major certainly acted in the theatre shows, but I don’t know of any connection.”
Lois stared at her. “Is that the truth, Hazel? All of it?” she said. Here was a girl she had known since birth, and she still couldn’t tell from the cool look in her eye whether she knew more than she had said. It was only to be expected, probably. Hazel would have had plenty of practice in editing the truth, acting as a buffer between Dick and Bridie. Poor kid. Lois said nothing more, and the two of them began to clean. It took a long time, scrubbing and disinfecting, and they had just about finished the ground floor when it was time for Hazel to go.
“Take care, then, Mrs M,” she said. “Lock up when I’ve gone, and just keep your eyes open.”
It was very quiet in the house, and Lois thought of turning on the radio in the sitting room. But then she would not be able to hear any possible visitors. Common sense told her the Gorilla would be unlikely to come back, but she was taking no chances. She had left the mirror room until last. Should she clean each one? Leave a sparkling, freshly-polished interior for whatever nut was likely to want such a room? I’m just the cleaner, she reminded herself, and set to work, removing spiders and dust and fingerprints…fingerprints? Oh well, the police would have done all that ages ago.
She tried to move a large wooden box to clean behind it, but it was too heavy. The lid was not locked and she opened it apprehensively. Nothing but innocent weight-lifting apparatus. She tried removing some of it, to make the box lighter, but failed. Then a glint of glass caught her eye. There was something different at the bottom of the box. She heaved weights to one side, and saw that it was a camera, with the lens glinting in the light. With difficulty she managed to extricate it, and looked to see if it was loaded. The frame counter showed 10. Film still in there then. Lois saw in her mind the thumb-sucking child…
She walked over to the window, and looked over the back garden wilderness. Now what? If she left the camera where it was, the chances were that the Gorilla would come back for it. He may well have been looking for it, and not for her, when Hazel frightened him away. If she took it, she could be in big trouble, trouble which could jeopardize New Brooms. There was only one thing to do, though she was reluctant to do it. She fetched her mobile phone from her bag, and dialled Cowgill’s direct line.
“Look, I don’t want to be seen here with you,” she said firmly. “I’ll tell you where it is, then I’m locking up and going home. Give me time to get away, then you can do what you like.”
“Thank you, Lois,” said Cowgill, with a touch of irony.
She told him about the magazines, and he sounded very interested. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said happily.
