reaction of huge relief. Pauline Helling had been afraid she knew who the bones belonged to. What she’d just said ruled out that possibility. Whoever the victim had been, it wasn’t Lennie Baylis’s mother.
But Pauline Helling knew who it was.
Carole didn’t reckon much for her chances of finding out, but it was worth trying. “You’ve lived round the village for a long time, haven’t you, Mrs Helling?”
“Only been in this cottage twelve years,” she replied defensively.
“But Brian said you used to work up here before that.”
“So? What’s that to you?”
Carole tried to guess what kind of work someone like Pauline Helling could have done in a place like Weldi- sham. She could never have had the outgoing personality to serve in the Hare and Hounds, so that really left only one alternative. “What did you do – cleaning?” There was no reply, but Carole knew she had got it right. “Who did you clean for?”
“That’s no business of yours.”
True, it wasn’t, but Carole was far too caught up in her thoughts to stop there. “Did you work for the Lutter- idges?” No reply, and no flicker of reaction either. “If you don’t tell me, I can find out.”
“You do that then,” said Pauline Helling, defiantly malevolent. “Come on, it’s time you went. We haven’t got anything else to say to each other.”
There was no pretence of politeness between them now, so, though Carole wasn’t optimistic about getting answers, she felt she could ask any questions she wanted to. As if the old woman hadn’t spoken, she said, “I gather you had a big pools win…” No reaction. “And that’s how you bought this house…” The vestigial upper lip remained an unmoving line. “When was that exactly?”
“Out.” Pauline Helling crossed to open the sitting-room door. “You’re not welcome here.”
She stood in the doorway and opened the front door. Carole stayed in her purple armchair and kept trying. “But you’re not welcome here either, are you, Mrs Helling? I gather the good folk of Weldisham don’t think you fit in.”
“If you don’t leave, I’ll call Brian. He can be quite nasty when he needs to be.”
After her experience on the track, Carole didn’t doubt it. Reluctantly, she rose from her armchair and moved towards the hall. She took one last look around the hideous sitting room.
Her eye was caught again by the Helling family reunion photograph.
And in it she saw something she should have noticed before, something that started a whole new set of exciting connections racing through her mind.
? Death on the Downs ?
Thirty-Three
Carole wasn’t yet positively suspicious of Detective Sergeant Baylis, but she was surprised by the alacrity with which he responded to her phone call. The fact that he was sitting in front of her fire at three-thirty that afternoon could have borne out Brian Helling’s hint that the detective was more concerned with monitoring other people’s thinking on the case than with finding a solution to it himself. Which could, as Brian had implied, mean that Lennie Baylis’s interest was a very personal one.
“So do I gather that you’ve got some new information, Mrs Seddon?”
He seemed at ease in her armchair, but watchful. Now she had recognized him as one of the boys in the Helling family photograph, the likeness was obvious. It was only his bulk that made his nose look small; in a thinner face it would have stood out as beakily as Pauline’s or Brian’s.
“I wouldn’t say it was new information, really. New thinking, perhaps.” He’d been so prompt in answering her summons that Carole hadn’t had time to refine her approach. She had to think on her feet. “It seems to me,” she continued tentatively, “that there’s some Helling family connection in this whole thing.”
He was unshocked by the suggestion. “Wouldn’t be a great surprise if there was. The Hellings are a very extensive family round here. At all kinds of different levels. Farm owners, farm workers…These days doctors and solicitors. There are Hellings everywhere. Most local people have some distant connection with them.”
“Including you,” she dared to say.
He may have been surprised by her knowing this, but not fazed. “Yes, my mother was a Helling.”
“So you’re related to Pauline and Brian?”
“Not directly, so far as I know. We probably are if you go back a few generations.”
“But you didn’t see a lot of Brian when you were growing up?”
“I told you we went to school together. But didn’t mix much in our spare time. Never really got on. Had to meet at the occasional big Helling family reunion, but that was it.” He spoke almost as if he knew she’d made the connection from the photograph on Pauline’s mantelpiece.
“The reason I mention it…” For a moment Carole almost lost her nerve, but she regained impetus. “The reason I mention it is something that Brian Helling said to me.”
“When did you see Brian?”
“He came chasing after me on the Downs on Friday. In his Land Rover.”
Baylis looked alarmed. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“No. He frightened me a bit, that’s all.”
The sergeant relaxed back in his chair. “Good. Keep clear of Brian Helling if you can. He’s a nasty bit of work.”
“But not criminally nasty. Or at least that’s what you implied before.”
“No, probably not criminally nasty. But you never know how someone like him might behave, given the right provocation.”
“I will do my level best to avoid meeting him again. And if I do meet him, I’ll do my level best to avoid provoking him. Not that I actually sought out his company last Friday.”
“No. Of course not. But be careful. He’s volatile and…” The sergeant stopped, as though he’d been about to go too far.
“Volatile and…?” Carole insisted.
“I’ve mentioned I think he’s into drugs. I haven’t got any proof yet, but…” He shook his head in exasperation. “Why am I telling you this? I rely on your discretion to keep quiet about it.”
“Of course.” Well, to everyone except Jude.
“So what was it Brian said to you last Friday?”
Presented with the direct question, there was no way Carole could avoid the direct answer. “He suggested that the bones I found might have belonged to your mother.”
Baylis nodded slowly. Again he appeared unshocked, almost as if he had been expecting that response. “I see. Well, it’s an old rumour. No surprise it should have resurfaced again.”
“And is it a rumour to which you give any credence?”
This time his face closed over. “No,” he replied curtly. “I’m not pretending my parents got on. If you think I’m about to say, “Never mind, we were poor but we were happy,” forget it. We were bloody miserable. When I was a kid, I spent as much time out of the house as I could. Out on the Downs all the time.”
“Must’ve been a great place to play, though.”
“Oh yes, we had plenty of games.” The grin this time was wry. “It’s easy for kids to play out their fantasies up on the Downs. Except, as I say, I was only out there so’s I didn’t have to go back home. My dad was a violent man, I don’t deny that. And yes, my mother walked out when I was fifteen. Just upped and left.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, don’t bother. You get over things. I joined the police force, made my own mates, got my own life now. Never think about those times.” He was clearly lying when he said the words. “As I say, my mother walked out on my father. He didn’t kill her. Nor did I, in case that was going to be your next question.” Then, before Carole could respond, he went on, “Interesting, though, that Brian should raise that suggestion to you.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, why you? Apart from the fact that you discovered the bones, you have nothing to do with the case. Why should he bother to go chasing over the Downs after you?”
