Five Dead Canaries

‘Sounds a bit like Alice,’ said Keedy, involuntarily.

‘There’s no need to mention her,’ said Marmion, testily. He dredged up a smile for their hosts. ‘The sergeant was referring to my daughter. She, too, would prefer to live on her own.’

‘It wasn’t like that in our day,’ said June, ‘was it, Brian?’ Her husband shook his head. ‘You stayed at home because you had to. I couldn’t have afforded to rent a flat and my parents would never have let me move out. They were right.’

‘Tell us about your daughter, Mrs Ingles.’

She smiled sadly. ‘I could go on for hours about Florrie.’

‘We’re in no hurry.’

‘She was a girl in a million. Florrie more or less ran this house when she was here. That’s true, isn’t it, Brian?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘she had more energy than the rest of us put together.’

‘We couldn’t keep up with her. She was like a whirlwind.’

Once embarked on her daughter’s life story, there was no holding June Ingles. Out came the photograph albums and the school reports and every other record they’d kept of her. Of the three children, she was clearly the favourite. Having mastered basic commercial skills very quickly, Florrie had worked as a secretary in a legal practice. When she was in full flow, June managed to shake off all hint of bereavement. She talked about her daughter as if she were still alive and well. Brian Ingles, however, sank deeper into his sorrow. Each treasured memento shown to the detectives had an adverse effect on him. He drew back, gritted his teeth and seemed to be in actual pain. When called upon to ratify one of his wife’s fulsome claims about Florrie, the most he could manage was a reluctant nod.

Recalling his visit to Reuben Harte, Keedy tried to shift the focus slightly.

‘Perhaps I could ask you a question, Mr Ingles,’ he said. ‘When I spoke to Jean Harte’s father, he told me that her best friend at work was Florrie. Is that true?’

‘I suppose that it is,’ said Ingles, uncomfortably.

‘They’d both lost someone at the front, I gather.’

‘That’s right,’ said June, rescuing her husband from the ordeal of having to engage in a conversation. ‘They were at school together, you see. I don’t mean Florrie and Jean. I’m talking about Roger — that was Florrie’s husband — and Maurice. They joined up together and were in the same regiment. On his last leave, Maurice got engaged to Jean and that was the last she ever saw of him. They had a telegram weeks later. Roger had been killed earlier and Florrie was still in mourning yet, as soon as she heard about Maurice, she went straight round to Jean’s house to console her. That was the kind of person she was. Florrie always put others first.’

‘She sounds like a remarkable young woman,’ said Marmion, ‘and you’re right to be proud of her. Did you approve of her taking the job at the factory?’

‘Not entirely, Inspector.’

‘Why is that?’

For once, she hesitated. The pause was unexpectedly filled by Ingles.

‘We didn’t like the idea,’ he said. ‘We’d heard about the dangers and we didn’t want Florrie to spoil her good looks in that factory. Also, she had a good job. I paid a lot of money for her to learn secretarial skills. There were plenty of others ready to work as drudges because that’s what they really were. They took women with no real education. Florrie was above such things.’

‘It’s what she wanted to do, Brian,’ soothed his wife.

‘It was wrong — and look where it got her.’

Feeling that he’d won the argument, he sat back and folded his arms. It was the first whiff of disagreement between him and June. The detectives realised that he could be more assertive than he looked and wondered if Brian Ingles was one of the reasons why Florrie hadn’t wished to return home after the loss of her husband. Patently, her father felt that working at the factory was far beneath her. Left to him, she’d still be typing letters for solicitors.

‘Mr Ingles raises an interesting point,’ said Marmion, looking from husband to wife. ‘There were five victims of that explosion and — had Maureen Quinn stayed there minutes longer — there would have been six. Why were they picked on? Was one or all of them a target?’

‘We’ve established that the outhouse where the party was held was very rarely used,’ said Keedy. ‘In other words, whoever set off that bomb knew that someone would be inside it at a particular time.’

‘What are you trying to tell us?’ asked June, anxiously.

‘The bomber must have hated someone at that party.’

‘Well, it couldn’t have been Florrie. Nobody could hate her.’

‘Are you certain of that, Mrs Ingles?’ probed Marmion. ‘Even the most popular people can sometimes have enemies. Indeed, their very popularity can arouse envy in some twisted minds. The fact is that it was your daughter’s birthday party. Everything revolved around her. I want you to think very carefully before you answer this question,’ he said. ‘Can you remember any occasion — any occasion at all — when Florrie upset someone by deliberately being rude or hostile to them?’

All that June could do was to stare at him open-mouthed but the question infuriated her husband. Leaping to his feet and shaking all over, he pointed to the door.

‘I’d like you both to leave right now, Inspector,’ he said, forcefully. ‘Our daughter has been murdered. Don’t you think we’ve got enough to put up with? Coming here and asking questions like that is an insult to Florrie. It’s disgusting. Please go away and leave us alone.’

After a flurry of apologies, the detectives left the house and got back into the waiting car. Marmion wondered what had prompted Ingles’s extreme reaction. Turning to him, Keedy gave a wry smile.

‘I shouldn’t mention that to the superintendent, if I were you,’ he said.

CHAPTER TEN

When he got home that evening, Eamonn Quinn found a kettle of hot water waiting for him on the stove. He poured it into a chipped enamel basin and washed off the grime of a day’s work. As he dried himself with a threadbare towel, his wife came into the kitchen.

‘What sort of a day did you have?’ she asked.

‘It was terrible. Everyone wanted to ask about Maureen.’

‘Well, it’s only natural.’

‘They kept on and on. I couldn’t stand it, Di.’ He hung the towel on a hook. ‘What about you — any visitors?’

‘We had lots,’ she replied, ‘but I didn’t let any of them in. Well, not until Father Cleary called, that is. I couldn’t turn him away.’

Quinn glared. ‘What was that old fool doing here?’

‘He came to offer his condolences.’

‘Well, he could have done that on the doorstep.’

‘Father Cleary wanted to speak to Maureen.’

‘I told you to let nobody in.’

‘He’s our parish priest, Eamonn. He has rights. In any case, Maureen was willing to talk to him and I thought that was a good sign. She’s even agreed to go to Mass on Sunday.’

He was aggrieved. ‘What on earth did she do that for?’

‘It’s what she wanted,’ said Diane. ‘I may go with her.’

‘Well, don’t expect me to be there. I’ve had my fill of Father Cleary and his interference. I’m not having anyone telling me how to live my life.’

‘But you were baptised and married in a Roman Catholic church. You made vows. We both did. We promised to bring up our children in the Catholic faith.’

‘I agreed to a lot of things when we were younger,’ he said, dismissively. ‘Then I realised that most of them