wasn’t as easily fooled.”
“Nor was Fell,” said Maggie loyally.
“Mind you,” said Tommy, “I told Peter I didn’t think he had a chance. You always looked very much like a couple to me.”
“Are you working on any good stories at the moment?” asked Maggie, desperate to change the subject.
Tommy shook his head. “You two have provided the best stories we’ve had in years. It’s back to school- sports days and flower-arrangement classes.”
“We’ve got to go,” said Fell. Tommy looked settled in the pub for the afternoon.
“Okay. Be a pal and send another double over on your way out.”
“What a sponge!” complained Maggie as they stood at the bar. Fell signalled to the barman, who ignored him.
“Service, please!” shouted Maggie. The barman sulkily served them. Fell carried the drink to Tommy, said goodbye, and then joined Maggie, who was waiting by the door. “Let’s get home,” he said.
They walked back to the High Street where Maggie had parked the car and drove home, Fell going over and over what they had just learned. Once home, Maggie headed for the kitchen. “I’ll fix us something to eat.”
“No, you won’t. Go and sit down and relax. You’ve been doing all the cooking lately. What do you feel like eating?”
“Just a sandwich. The heat has taken my appetite away.”
Fell made a plate of ham sandwiches and a pot of tea and carried the lot through to the sitting room.
There was a ring at the doorbell. Fell put down the tray and went to answer it. He was so absorbed in thoughts of Gloria Lewis that he half-expected her to be standing on the doorstep, but it was Maggie’s mother.
“Going to ask me in?”
“Come in,” said Fell reluctantly. “Maggie’s in the sitting room.”
Maggie’s mother was deeply tanned. Fell thought she looked like a piece of bad-tempered old leather.
“So what’s all this about?” began Mrs. Partlett as soon as she saw her daughter. “I go off to Tenerife and when I get back the town’s buzzing with the news that you pair nearly got blown up by the IRA.”
Maggie could not be bothered explaining about the train robbery, so she said, “Someone mistook us for someone else.”
“I thought that might be it. Who’s going to bother about a pair of wimps like you?”
“You are in my house and while you are here, you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head,” said Fell quietly.
She looked at him as amazed as if a pet rabbit had bitten her on the ankle. “Oh, well,” she said with a shrug, “when are you going to get married?”
“Next month,” said Fell in that same quiet voice.
“And am I invited?”
“We’ll think about it.”
“What! Don’t you dare stop me from coming to my own daughter’s wedding.”
“I will do what I want. If you are going to go on sneering at Maggie, then I don’t want you around.”
She had been about to sit down. But instead she marched back towards the door. “You just try to stop me,” she shouted. She opened the street door, walked outside and slammed it behind her.
“Oh, Fell,” said Maggie mistily, “I’ve been longing for someone to stand up for me.”
“I don’t like to see you hurt. Now let’s eat, Maggie, and we’ll get out some pens and paper and start working out what we’ve got.”
If only he had meant that about marriage, thought Maggie, and bit into a ham sandwich which tasted as dry as dust.
? The Skeleton in the Closet ?
Nine
“The thing is this,” said Fell, making notes, “why was it so important for my father to get that shift? I know he was not my father, but I can’t get out of calling him that. He was a miser. Why should he pay Terry Weale a tenner? You got anything?”
“Maybe Tommy Whittaker was wrong. Maybe Gloria got a large divorce settlement from James Lewis.”
“Could be. But I can’t envisage an old man like Rudfern dressing up as a postman, pushing me in the river and putting Semtex in your car.”
The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” said Fell. “I’ll take a look out of the window first.”
He opened the sitting-room window and peered round it. Then he headed for the door, saying, “It’s my aunt Agnes.”
Aunt Agnes was as buttoned up and whiskery as ever. “I came to see what you were up to,” she said.
“Come in,” said Fell.
Maggie in the sitting room heard Aunt Agnes say crossly, “It’s all the fault of that girl you’re engaged to. I bet she has a criminal background.”
And then she heard Fell’s voice, quiet and intense, “While you are here, no criticism of Maggie at all. Of course it has nothing to do with her.”
Aunt Agnes stumped into the sitting room. She eyed Maggie with disfavour. Fell followed her in.
“Nothing like this has ever happened in our family,” she complained.
“But I’m not of your family, am I?” Fell said.
She goggled at Fell.
“I appear to be the son of a certain Paul Wakeham.”
“How did you find that out?”
“So you knew all along,” said Fell flatly.
“My sister and her husband were good parents to you. There was no need for you to know.”
“On the contrary,” said Fell savagely, “they were paid a large sum of money for my education. I could have got a place at university. But, oh no, they pleaded poverty as usual and I had to work as a waiter.”
“It’s all water under the bridge.” Aunt Agnes gave an irritating sniff.
“Have you any idea of what a shock it was to me?” shouted Fell.
“It’s no use you getting uppity with me, young man. My sister reared you as if you were her own.”
“And you knew all along! And have you any idea what that rearing was like? The loneliness, the beatings, the constant complaining about how they couldn’t afford this and they couldn’t afford that.”
“You aren’t going to the papers with this, are you?” exclaimed Aunt Agnes. “Think of our good name.”
Fell’s anger left as abruptly as it had come. “No,” he said wearily, “I’m as anxious to protect my reputation as you are. While you’re here, you can answer me one question. Did my…I mean Mr. Dolphin have anything to do with the train robbery?”
“Bite your tongue! Of course not!”
“But on the day of the robbery he went on duty, even though it was his day off. He even paid Terry Weale a tenner!”
Aunt Agnes looked uncomfortable. “I ‘member that day. Because of the robbery, you see. It was that Colonel Wakeham. He said he wasn’t going to have nothing to do with them after you was handed over. But he suddenly says he’s going to come round and see how the boy is. So Charlie says he’s not having him round the house and the boy’s busy and that Colonel Wake-ham is to meet him at the station in the morning and he’ll give him a report. He saw the colonel, and soon as the colonel had left, that was when he got the call about stopping the train. He couldn’t tell the police the truth, for he had to protect you.”
“Yes, and I might have found out just what a money-grabbing miser he was,” said Fell bitterly.
“No need to take that tone with me,” said Aunt Agnes, every hair on her face bristling with indignation. “They didn’t want you. If it hadn’t been for my sister, you’d have ended up in an orphanage.”
“Would you like some tea?” asked Maggie, speaking for the first time.
“No, she’s just leaving,” said Fell. “How did you get here?”
“The train.”
“I’ll get you a cab. And then I don’t want to see you again.”
