Scold's Bridle

Cooper sought desperately to break this down into manageable proportions. There were so many unanswered questions. 'Why would no doctor prescribe barbiturates for Gerald Cavendish? I've checked the coroner's report. There was no question of murder, only a choice between misadventure and suicide.'

'Gerald was...' Jane sought for the right word, 'feeble-minded, I suppose, like the Spedes, but today they call it educationally subnormal. It's why the property was kept intact for William. Mathilda's grandfather was afraid Gerald would give it away to anyone who asked for it. But I've never really understood how Mathilda came to sleep with him. He was a very pathetic person. I've always assumed her father forced her into it to protect his legacy somehow, but James said it was all Mathilda's idea. I don't believe that. James hated her so much he'd have said anything to blacken her.'

Cooper shook his head in bewilderment. How uneventful his own life had been, compared with the agonies of this grey-haired motherly soul who looked as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. 'Why did you visit James Gillespie in Hong Kong if your husband had had an affair with his wife? There can't have been much love lost between the three of you in all conscience.'

'We didn't or at least not like that. We had no idea James had gone to Hong Kong. Mathilda never told us-why would she?-and we moved away from here after the affair and went to live in Southampton. I became a teacher and Paul worked for a shipping company. We put it all behind us, and then Paul had to go to Hong Kong on business and took me with him for a holiday.' She shook her head. 'And almost the first person we met when we arrived was James. The expatriate community was so small'-she raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness-'we were bound to meet him. If we'd only known he was there, we'd never have gone. Fate is very cruel, Sergeant.'

He couldn't argue with that. 'Then why did you come back here to live, Mrs. Marriott, knowing that Mrs. Gillespie was in Cedar House? Weren't you tempting fate a second time?'

'Yes,' she said simply, 'but what could I do about it? Paul knows nothing of any of this, Sergeant, and he's dying-slowly-of emphysema. We kept our house here-it was his parents' house and he was too fond of it to sell it, so we let it out to tenants-and then five years ago, he was retired on health grounds and he begged me to let us come home.' Her eyes flooded again. 'He said I needn't worry about Mathilda, that the only thing he had ever felt for her was compassion, while the only woman he had ever loved was me. How could I tell him then what had really happened? I still thought his baby was dead.' She held her handkerchief to her streaming eyes. 'It wasn't until I went to Cedar House and asked Mathilda about James that she told me she'd put the baby up for adoption.' She buried her face in her hands. 'It was a boy and he's still alive somewhere.'

Cooper pondered the sad ironies of life. Was it providence, God or random selection that made some women fertile and some barren? With a deep reluctance he took her back to the day Mathilda died, knowing there was little chance that what she told him could ever remain a secret.

I am pregnant again, sickeningly and disgustingly pregnant. Barely six months after giving birth to one bastard, I am carrying another. Perhaps James's drunken rages will achieve some good purpose by bringing on a miscarriage. He weeps and rants in turn, screaming insults at me like a fishwife, intent, it seems, on trumpeting my 'whorishness' to the entire building. And all for what? A brief, unlovely affair with Paul Marriott whose clumsy, apologetic gropings were almost past endurance. Then, why, Mathilda?

Because there are days when I could 'drink hot blood, and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on'. Paul's priggishness annoyed me. He talked about 'dear Jane' as if she mattered to him. Mostly I think about death-the baby's death, James's death, Gerald's death, Father's death. It is, after all, such a final solution. Father connives to keep me in London. He tells me Gerald has sworn to marry Grace if I return. The worst of it is, I believe him. Gerald is so very, very frightened of me now.

I paid a private detective to take photographs of James. And, my, my, what photographs they are! 'The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't with such a riotous appetite.' And in a public lavatory too. If the truth be told, I am rather looking forward to showing them to him. What I did was merely sinful. What James does is criminal. There'll be no more talk of divorce, that's for sure, and he'll go to Hong Kong without a murmur. He has no more desire than I to have his sexual activities made public.

Really, Mathilda, you must learn to use blackmail to better effect on Gerald and Father...

*17*

Hughes, who was suffering from sleep deprivation and niggling doubts about the continued obedience of the youngsters he had so successfully controlled, was subdued when he faced Chief Inspector Charlie Jones across the table in the interview room at Freemont Road Police Station. Like Cooper, he was in pessimistic mood. 'I suppose you've come to stitch me up for the old cow's murder,' he said morosely. 'You're all the same.'

'Ah, well,' said Charlie in his lugubrious fashion, 'it makes the percentages look better when the league tables get published. We're into business culture in the police force these days, lad, and productivity's important.'

'That stinks.'

'Not to our customers it doesn't.'

'What customers?'

'The law-abiding British public who pay handsomely for our services through their taxes. Business culture demands that we first identify our client base, next, assess its needs, then, finally, respond in a satisfactory and adequate manner. You already represent a handsome profit on the balance sheet. Rape, conspiracy to rape, abduction, holding without consent, conspiracy to hold without consent, assault, sexual assault, theft, conspiracy to commit theft, handling stolen goods, corruption, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice-' he broke off with a broad smile, 'which brings me to Mrs. Gillespie's murder.'

'I knew it,' said Hughes in disgust. 'You're gonna fucking frame me for it. Jesus! I'm not saying another word till my brief gets here.'

'Who said anything about framing you?' demanded . Charlie plaintively. 'It's a little co-operation I'm after,