‘Well, I suppose it must have been about half past four when some proper medical people turned up and I thought they could manage without me for a bit and so I went back outside again. To tell you the truth, I was worried about Mr Lickes. He’s got to be awfully careful, you know. Any heavy work and he ricks that back of his before you can say knife. I know people think he’s awfully strong with his physical fitness and all those muscles and every things but I’ve learned better than to take any chances with him. Oh – that reminds me – I haven’t got the coal in for the lounge fire yet. Coal fires look ever so nice but they do make a of work, don’t **hey?’
There was a pause and Dover opened his eyes to find Mrs Lickes gazing expectantly at him. He made a valiant attempt at bridging the hiatus. ‘Oh, quite,’ he said.
Mrs Lickes appeared to be awaiting more.
Dover silently damned the stupid cow to all eternity and tried again. ‘Now then – er – when you were doing this Florence Nightingale stuff . . .’
‘In the Studio? Yes?’
‘Er – did you see What’s-his-name?’
‘Mr Chantry? No, I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, ’strewth!’ snapped Dover crossly, ‘You’re worse than your blooming husband! Can’t you remember, for God’s sake?’ Mrs Lickes, more than a little taken aback by this onslaught, couldn’t. She began making excuses. It had been dark in the Studio – did Mr Dover realize that the electricity had all gone off and they had to manage with a couple of old oil lamps? – and then, of course, people had looked such a mess that it was almost impossible to recognize anybody. The men in particular had their faces and clothes absolutely caked in mud.
A sideways peep at Dover’s implacable visage warned Mrs Lickes that she would have to do better than this. She managed a few more feeble remarks about being fully occupied with the frightened and injured victims of the earthquake and then let her voice trail guiltily away.
Dover emitted an elaborate sigh of exasperation. ‘Oh, all right,’ he snarled,’ though, if you ask me, there’s none so blind as those trying to conceal evidence from the police. Now, get on with it! I’ve got something better to do with my time than listen to you imitating a babbling brook. You left this Studio place. Then what?’
Mrs Lickes gulped back her tears and told herself it was probably just his way of putting things. ‘Well,’ she resumed, ‘I thought I’d better go into what was left of North Street. Everybody had been saying that’s where the worst damage was and I knew I’d find Mr Lickes right in the thick of things. Well, when I got round the comer, I saw that there were a lot of people gathered in Mr Chantry’s front garden. I went in to ask if any of them had seen Mr Lickes and then I found that Millie Hooper was there, making cups of tea and things. They have Calor gas, you see, so they were all right. Well, somebody said they’d seen Mr Lickes only half an hour or so earlier so I thought he was all right and I decided to stay and give Millie Hooper a hand. Poor girl, she was looking so peaked. She’s expecting, you know, and with all that standing around . . . Well, it started getting light and more and more police and demolition men and first-aid people kept arriving, so our local people began knocking off. I caught sight of Mr Lickes and I insisted that he came straight back here to the hotel. He catches cold so easily and he was absolutely soaked to the skin, poor thing. I meant to follow him in a few minutes, of course, because the WVS had got a proper canteen going in the Church Hall and we were running out of food and things anyhow. But, it was Millie Hooper, you see. She’d only just begun to think about what her father was going to say when he got back and found she’d given away every scrap of food and drink they had in the house. Mr Chantry wasn’t a mean man, not really, but he was what you might call careful. I know Millie Hooper had to account to him for every last penny of her housekeeping allowance. Well, the more she thought about it, the more upset she got. In the end I decided to hang on for a bit so I could put a good word in for her when he finally turned up.’
A violent creaking of the bed springs warned Mrs Lickes that Detective Chief Inspector Dover was rousing himself to put a question.
‘Frightened of her father, was she?’
‘Frightened?’ Mrs Lickes gave a rather uncharitable laugh. ‘She was terrified of him! Just like her poor dead mother, if you really want to know.’
‘Why?’
‘He was a hard man. Hard in business and hard in his private life. He never accepted excuses. He’d got very high standards and he expected other people, especially his family, to live up to them. Millie Hooper’s twenty-one, you know, and right up to the time site got married she had to be home every night by ten o’clock. The poor girl was the laughing stock of the village. There isn’t another teenager in the place who was treated like that. It meant she couldn’t go to the pictures in Beccles or dances or anything. She’d no life at all, poor kid. We all thought she’d finish up an old maid, waiting on her father hand and foot until he passed on but then, all of a sudden, Colin Hooper appeared on the scene. I wouldn’t exactly call him a knight in shining armour but at least he was a bit of support for Millie’s side.’ Mrs Lickes glanced
