'And so she had known your father all her life?'
Henrietta nodded. 'Ceratinly since they were children. She used to tell me a lot about him when he was a little boy. But, Inspector, I don't see what this has got to do with my mother's death.'
'No, miss, I don't suppose you do,'Sloan paused judiciously.
'It's not easy to say this, miss, and if it weren't a matter of you having to give formal evidence of identification at the inquest it might not even be something we need to take cognizance of.'
'What might not be?' Henrietta looked quite mystified.
'This Cyril Jenkins…'
'My father?'
'Had he been married twice by any chance?'
'Not that I know of. Why?'
'Or Grace Jenkins? Had she been married to anyone else besides Cyril Jenkins?'
A slow flush mounted Henrietta's cheeks. 'No, Inspector, not to my knowledge.'
Like a cat picking its way over a wet path Sloan said delicately, 'There is a possibility that your name may not be Jenkins.'
'Not Jenkins?'
'Not Jenkins.'
'I may be being very stupid,' said Henrietta, 'but I don't see why not.'
'It was Dr. Dabbe.'
'Dr. Dabbe?'
'The pathologist, miss, from the hospital. He conducted a post-mortem examination on the body of the woman who was knocked down.'
'That's right.' She nodded. 'My mother.'
'No, miss.'
Henrietta sat down suddenly. 'I came into the Police Station on Wednesday—yesterday, that was—when I got back. They asked me to look at her. I signed something. There was a sergeant there—he'll tell you.' She screwed up her face at the recollection. 'There wasn't any doubt. I wish there had been. It was her. Her face, her clothes, her handbag. I've never seen anyone dead before but I was absolutely certain…'
Sloan put up a hand to stem the memory. 'It's not quite that, miss…' He couldn't tell if she knew nothing at all or if she knew a great deal more than he did. It was impossible to know.
She pushed a strand of hair away from her face and said very quietly, 'Well, what exactly is it, then?'
'This woman who you identified yesterday as Mrs. Grace Edith Jenkins…'
'Yes?'
Sloan didn't hurry to go on. He felt oddly embarrassed.
This wasn't the sort of subject you discussed with young girls. He didn't often wish work onto the women members of the Force but perhaps this might have been one of the times when…
'I'm sorry to have to tell you, miss, that the pathologist says she's never had any children.'
A blush flamed up Henrietta's pale face. She tried to speak but for a moment no sound came. Then she managed a shaky little laugh. 'I'm afraid there must have been some terrible mistake, Inspector…'
Sloan shook his head.
'A mix-up at the hospital, perhaps,' she went on, heedless of his denial. 'It happens with babies sometimes, doesn't it? Perhaps it's the same sometimes in—in other places…'
'No, miss…'
She took a deep breath. 'That was my mother I saw yesterday. Beyond any doubt.'
The doubt in Sloan's mind, because he was a policeman paid to doubt, was whether the girl was party to this knowledge about Grace Jenkins. He didn't let it alter his behaviour.
'I fear,' gently, 'that the pathologist is equally adamant that the subject of his examination had never borne children.'
He saw the blush on the face of the girl in front of him fade away to nothing as she suddenly went very very pale.
'But…' Henrietta's world seemed suddenly to have no fixed points at all. She struggled to think and to speak logically. 'But who am I then?'
CHAPTER FOUR
'Where do we go from here, sir?'
'That you may well ask, Crosby.' Sloan was irritable and preoccupied as they walked away from Boundary Cottage. 'All we've got so far is a girl who isn't who she thinks she is, the body of a woman who probably wasn't what she said she was and two photographs.'
'Yes, sir.' Crosby closed the gate behind them.
'Added to which we're leaving an unprotected girl, who has just been subjected to a great emotional shock, alone in a relatively isolated house to which we strongly suspect somehas already gained admittance with a key.'
'She could go to friends. There must be someone near who would have her.'
'I don't doubt that but it would be most unwise of her to go to them.'
'Unwise, sir?'
'Unwise, Crosby. If we advise it and she goes she might have difficulty in regaining possession of her mother's—of Mrs. Jenkins's—belongings.'
'I hadn't thought about that, sir.' There was a distinct pause while Crosby did think about it, then, 'From whom, sir?'
'I don't know.'
'I see, sir.' He didn't, in fact, see anything at all but thought it prudent not to say so.
'Have you thought that after this she may well not be in a position to prove her title to the cottage tenancy?'
'No, sir.' Crosby digested this in silence. Then, 'A sort of Tichborne Claimant in reverse, you might say, sir.'
'That's it,' agreed Sloan. Crosby, who was ambitious for promotion, had recently taken to looking up old cases. He stood for a moment beside the police car and then said, 'A landlord usually knows a tenant as well as anyone after a while. Drive to The Hall, Crosby.'
It lay between the village and Boundary Cottage, to the south of the church. Whereas the Rectory was Georgian, The Hall was older. It was quite small but perfectly proportioned.
'That's it,' observed Sloan with satisfaction. 'They had a bit about it in one of those magazines last year. My wife showed it to me. Late Tudor.'
'Make a nice rest Home for tired constables,' said Crosby.
James Hibbs saw them in his study. He was a well-built man in well-built tweeds. His hair was black running to grey and Sloan put his age at about fifty-five. As they went in two aristocratic gun dogs looked the two policemen over, decided they were not fair game and settled back disdainfully on the hearth.
'Shocking business,' agreed Hibbs. 'Don't like to think of something like that happening on your own doorstep, do you?'
'No, sir.'
'Any news of the fellow who did it?'
'Not yet, sir.'
'All in good time, I suppose.' He sighed. 'A good woman. Brought that girl up very well considering.'
'Considering what, sir?'
Hibbs waved a hand. 'That she'd had to do it on her own. No father, you know. Just her pension.'
'Had you known her long?'
'Couldn't say I really knew her at all. She wasn't that sort of a woman. But she'd been here quite a while.' He looked curiously at Sloan. 'She came to Larking in the war. Couldn't tell you exactly when. Is it important?'
