saying he’d just dropped by.”
Lynley followed the previously established euphemism. “I take it he didn’t drop by at all.”
“Oh, he did. He was here. But it wasn’t a coincidence. He didn’t just happen to be on his rounds. That’s what he told the inquest. That’s what he told his father and Sergeant Hawkins. That’s what he told everyone. But that’s not what happened.”
“You arranged for him to come?”
“I telephoned him.”
“I see. The alibi.”
She looked up at that. Her expression seemed resigned rather than culpable or afraid. She took a moment to strip off her tattered mittens and tuck them into the sleeves of her sweater before saying, “That’s exactly what Colin said people would think: that I was phoning him to establish a form of innocence. ‘She ate the stuff as well,’ he’d have to say at the inquest. ‘I was at the cottage. I saw for myself.’”
“Which is what he said, as I understand it.”
“He’d have said the rest, if I’d had my way. But I couldn’t convince him of the necessity of saying I’d phoned him because I’d been sick three times, I wasn’t handling the pain of it very well, and I wanted him near. So he ended up putting himself at risk by colouring the truth. And I don’t much like living with that knowledge.”
“He’s at risk in any number of ways at this point, Mrs. Spence. The investigation is fi lled with irregularities. He needed to hand the case over to a CID team from Clitheroe. Since he didn’t do that, he’d have been wise to conduct any interrogations with an offi cial witness present. And considering his involvement with you, he should have stepped out of the process altogether.”
“He wants to protect me.”
“That may be the case but it looks a far sight nastier than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“It looks as if Shepherd’s covering up his own crime. Whatever that may have been.”
She pushed herself abruptly from the central table against which she had been leaning. She walked two paces away from him, then back again, pulling off her headband. “Look. Please. These are the facts.” Her words were terse. “I went out to the pond. I dug up water hemlock. I thought it was parsnip. I cooked it. I served it. Mr. Sage died. Colin Shepherd had no part of this.”
“Did he know Mr. Sage was coming to dinner?”
“I said he had no part of this.”
“Did he ever ask you about your relationship with Sage?”
“Colin’s done nothing!”
“Is there a Mr. Spence?”
She balled the bandana into her fi st. “I… No.”
“And your daughter’s father?”
“That’s none of your business. This has absolutely nothing to do with Maggie. Not at all. She wasn’t even here.”
“That day?”
“For the dinner. She was in the village, spending the night with the Wraggs.”
“But she was here that day, earlier, when you went out to look for the wild parsnip in the first place? Perhaps while you were cooking?”
Her face seemed rigid. “Hear me, Inspector. Maggie isn’t involved.”
“You’re avoiding the questions. That tends to suggest you’ve something to hide. Something about your daughter?”
She moved past him towards the door of the greenhouse. The space was confi ned. Her arm brushed against him as she passed, and it would have taken little enough effort to detain her, but he chose not to do so. He followed her out. Before he could ask another question, she spoke.
“I’d gone to the root cellar. There were only two left. I needed more. That’s the extent of it.”
“Show me, if you will.”
She led him across the garden to the cottage where she opened the door to what appeared to be the kitchen and removed a key from a hook just inside. Not ten feet away, she unfastened the padlock on the sloping cellar door and lifted it.
“A moment,” he said. He lowered and lifted it for himself. Like the gate in the wall, it moved easily enough. And like the gate, it moved without noise. He nodded and she descended the steps.
There was no electricity in the root cellar. Light was supplied from the doorway and from a single small window at the level of the ground. This was the size of a shoe carton and partially obstructed by the straw which covered the plants outside. The result was a chamber of moisture and shadow, comprising perhaps an eight-foot square. Its walls were an unfinished mixture of stone and earth. Its floor was the same, although some effort had been expended at one time to make it even.
Mrs. Spence gestured towards one of four roughly hewn shelves bolted to the wall that was farthest from the light. Aside from a neat stack of bushel baskets, the shelves were all the room contained save what they themselves held. On the top three sat rows of canning jars, their labels indecipherable in the gloom. On the bottom stood five small wire bins.
Potatoes, carrots, and onions fi lled three. The other two held nothing.
Lynley said, “You’ve not replenished your supply.”
“I don’t think much of eating parsnips any longer. And certainly not wild ones.”
He touched the rim of one of the empty bins. He moved his hand to the shelf that held it. There was no sign of either dust or disuse.
He said, “Why do you keep the cellar door locked? Have you always done?”
When she didn’t reply at once, he turned from the shelves to look at her. Her back was to the muted light of morning that shone through the door, so he couldn’t read her expression.
“Mrs. Spence?”
“I’ve kept it locked since October last.”
“Why?”
“It has nothing to do with any of this.”
“I’d appreciate an answer nonetheless.”
“I’ve just given one.”
“Mrs. Spence, shall we pause to look at the facts? A man is dead at your hands. You’ve a relationship with the police offi cial who investigated the death. If either of you thinks—”
“All right. Because of Maggie, Inspector. I wanted to give her one less place to have sex with her boyfriend. She’d already used the Hall. I’d put a stop to that. I was trying to eliminate the rest of the possibilities. This seemed to be one of them, so I locked it up. Not that it mattered, as I’ve since discovered.”
“But you kept the key on a hook in the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“In plain sight?”
“Yes.”
“Where she could get to it?”
“Where I could get to it quickly as well.” She ran an impatient hand back through her hair. “Inspector, please. You don’t know my daughter. Maggie tries to be good. She thought she’d been wicked enough already. She gave me her word that she wouldn’t have sex with Nick Ware again, and I told her I’d help her keep the promise. The lock itself was suffi cient to keep her out.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Maggie and sex,” Lynley said. He saw her glance move from his face to the shelves behind him. He knew what she was looking at largely because she didn’t allow her eyes to rest upon it longer than an instant. “When you go out, do you lock your
doors?”
“Yes.”
“When you’re in the greenhouse? When you make your rounds of the Hall? When you leave to look for wild parsnips?”
“No. But then I’m not out for long. And I’d know if someone were prowling round.”
