A Woman Unknown (15 page)

Marcus attempted graciousness. ‘Mrs Shackleton has helped me before in enquiries.’

This gave me the opening to ask, ‘Who will interview Mrs Fitzpatrick?’ I wondered whether the solitary woman police constable who had not been available to
interview the chambermaid might be recruited.

To give Marcus credit, he showed just the slightest discomfort. ‘The sergeant is organising interviews.’

Sergeant Wilson gave a satisfied smile. ‘Mr Charles usually entrusts the interviewing of the fair sex to me. He believes I do it well.’

I turned to go. ‘Well then, good luck.’

Part of me hoped that Deirdre Fitzpatrick would run rings around him. Her story to Fitzpatrick that she had spent the night at the nursing home was a lot of hot air, and would soon be disproved.

‘I’ll take a few more details from you if I may, Mrs Shackleton,’ Wilson said.

I rattled off the two addresses: Deirdre’s mother’s on Cotton Street, and the house on Norman View, made my excuses, and left.

Not that I felt peeved about being left out of the investigation. Not much.

Deirdre sat by her mother’s bed. Rays of evening sun pierced the window and streamed onto her mammy’s face. She should draw the curtains. But Deirdre could not bring herself to shut out the light that would soon turn itself inside out forever.

The pale eyes flickered. ‘Who was that?’

‘Earlier? Fitz was here.’

‘The others, at the foot of the bed.’

Deirdre stroked her mother’s hand. ‘Your son Anthony came, and Father Daley.’

‘At the foot of the bed. A baker, a butcher, a woman with a basket.’

‘I didn’t see them, Mam. Was her basket full?’

She closed her eyes.

Her mother spoke just twice more. The first time, she did not open her eyes. She said, ‘What if he’s there? What if he’s waiting?’

Deirdre knew who she meant. ‘St Peter will deal with him. Don’t worry your head.’

The last time she spoke, her voice was light as air and deep as a gravel pit. She opened her eyes sufficiently to
catch a flicker of blue, the blue of Deirdre’s cardigan.

‘Am I still in this world?’

Her mam thought she was catching sight of Our Lady’s robes.

‘You’re still here.’

And then she slept, and slipped so quietly from this world to the next that Deirdre was not sure of the moment of going, or for how long afterwards she sat.

After a long time, someone came into the room, a nurse. She led Deirdre out and said something that she did not hear, and asked her to sit a moment, and wait. But Deirdre went outside.

The garden of the nursing home mocked her with its summer beauty. Mam, you should have seen more of this. You should have come here sooner, to sit outside, to see grass, trees, flowers, a sky with some blue and white, not leaden and laden with fumes of factories and foundries. You lived all your life in a miasma, and here, just to the edge of it, was something else. Now it’s too late. You wouldn’t have wanted me to do what I did, to earn the money to bring you here. In your heart did you want to die where you lived, not pass your last few days with starched strangers.

The matron came to find her. The doctor must come. They were waiting for the doctor. Deirdre turned back and looked at the window. It felt so cruel to leave her mammy alone at the last.

‘How will you get home?’ the matron asked. ‘I could arrange for you to be taken.’

A pounds, shillings and pence sign flashed in the matron’s eyes. It would be added to the bill.

Deirdre did not know what the word meant. Home.
She had said goodbye to home the night she lay on the bed in the old room, on her mother’s bed, a room full of memories, and struggles not spoken of, just faced, just won or lost, all the tiny battles to hold your head high, not be overcome by the inability to make a shilling stretch, to be always surrounded by want and sickness and small defeats and people who put on a brave face. Cut out the cardboard insoles for your shoes and never heed the holes. Go to the market as it closed to see what was to be had. Pick up a cabbage that had fallen from a cart. But everyone was in the same boat. Then along came the big brown bear, Cyril Fitzpatrick, courting her in the boating lake café with fancy cakes.

The matron looked at her, waiting for an answer. ‘I don’t need a ride,’ Deirdre said.

That would be too strange, and not her at all, to ride in a motor car when her mother would never again feel the air on her skin or see her own shadow on the wall by candlelight. ‘I’ll take the tram.’

The matron touched her arm with long thin fingers. ‘I will walk you to the tram stop.’

‘No. Thank you.’ She would walk herself.

The matron kept her fingers so lightly on Deirdre’s arm. Deirdre felt light-headed, and unreal, as if she might float away.

‘Your husband and brother should come tomorrow, to make the arrangements.’

The arrangements.

Deirdre nodded.

Arrangements. Such a strange word and what it meant was, we will begin the long, slow goodbye to your mam.

Who will remember the way you combed your hair?

Deirdre walked.

There was the tram and people getting on, as if nothing had happened.

She turned into the park through the big gates. As others left the park, she went deeper, against the flow, as usual.

At the boating lake, the man in charge called across the water, ‘Come in, your time is up.’

She walked back to the nursing home. She hesitated, seeing a big car by the gates. But there was only the driver, waiting, smoking a cigarette.

She passed the motor on the other side of the street, making herself invisible, then crossed and entered the ginnel that ran alongside the nursing home grounds. Overhanging branches formed a shady tent.

She saw Fitz, the man she called husband, the lumbering stranger she had coaxed to more than kiss her but who did not like to be too close, or to touch her breasts or her thighs or any part of her. When she had enticed him, he had acted as if she burned his fingertips, as if to touch her was to feel the flames of hell.

With the man she had called husband was the one who called himself her brother, who had appeared out of nowhere, demanding to be paid attention, frightened her mother to death by his likeness to their dad, and expected to be praised for it.

The resentment rose. Tiny knots of fury made her skin feel too tight to contain her feelings. All those years when Anthony was an ocean away, Mam carried him in her heart, his name on her lips and in her prayers. And he never bothered, never cared. If he did care now, it was in that showy way, all mouth and trousers, and too late. Well let him get on with it.

When Fitz and Anthony finally left, Deirdre opened the nursing home’s side gate, a creaking gate, and stepped into the grounds, keeping out of sight behind the trees.

She followed a winding path to the rear of the garden, to a greenhouse, and opened its door.

After the evening chill, it was like entering an oven, but this oven smelled of the jungle, of vines and sharp, sweet vegetation. Potted plants stood on shelves. At the back, on sacking, lay uprooted flowers that had come to the end of their days.

Deirdre carefully folded a rough sack, took off her shoes, and knelt in the centre aisle of the greenhouse. She whispered the ‘De profundis’, for her mother.

She would spend the night here.

She slept, and dreamed of men: of a husband who was no husband at all; of her brother, who arrived too late; of a dad she did not know but who would drink and hit out. When he tumbled down the cellar steps, it was a blessing, and in answer to a prayer made by her mother to St Rita.

In her dream, the three men perched on clouds, posing as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Her mammy’s voice echoed through the greenhouse. Am I still on this earth?

Deirdre slept soundly in the nursing home greenhouse, on the sacking that smelled of earth, mould and eternity, quite unaware of how many people very much wanted to talk with her.

After my brief meeting with Marcus and Sergeant Wilson, I drove home rather fast, and somewhat recklessly, which is not like me at all. Perhaps Marcus did not need my help. Perhaps Wilson really was very good at interviewing women, and I should not have let his attitude annoy me.

I had found out so much, and yet so little. The collusion of Archie the waiter in the matter of Runcie’s proof of adultery for the purpose of his divorce; the reasons for Anthony Hartigan’s first visit home; the connection between Deirdre and Anthony; Philippa’s suspicions of Caroline Windham; Caroline’s suspicions of Philippa and her secretary, Gideon King; the nagging feeling I had about the incident at the shoot – the near-miss. And that person who seemed to pop up everywhere, Len Diamond, with his camera on Leeds Bridge; whispering insinuations to Cyril Fitzpatrick; showing off his insider knowledge to me at the racecourse; being jostled by Gideon King, in the grandstand after Diamond attempted to photograph the Runcies and Caroline.

In not asking for my help on the case, Marcus
must have uncovered so much more. I wished I knew what.

When I turned into my street, I caught sight of an upright, slender figure wearing stout shoes and a gabardine raincoat. As I drew level, I saw that it was Philippa Runcie, and waved. She waved back and called, ‘I’ll catch you up.’

I would normally have gone up to the garage, but stopped at my gate and got out, waiting for Philippa.

As she drew level, she looked behind her. ‘I wouldn’t put it past Gideon to follow me. But I don’t think he saw me leave.’

‘Why would Gideon follow you?’

‘I told you. He’s so protective. I had to come out for air. I feel I’m going mad in that house.’

‘Would you like to come in?’

‘I’d rather walk, if you don’t mind coming with me. I want to talk to you.’

‘I could do with a walk myself. I’ll just put my satchel in the house and change my shoes.’

Five minutes later, we were walking up my road, past the big house whose stable I use as a garage. The wood beyond was quiet at this time of evening, with only the distant bark of a dog. Some leaves had fallen early and crunched underfoot.

Philippa thrust her hands into her pockets. For a person who said she wanted to talk, she seemed reluctant to begin. We followed the path through the wood. Suddenly, she said, ‘While you were changing your shoes, I put an envelope on top of your filing cabinet.’

‘Oh?’

‘I wrote you a letter, in case you weren’t in.’

‘What does it say, or do you want me to wait and read it?’

A squirrel raced across our path and up a tree.

‘It’s a letter and a cheque, a retainer. When we were talking in the maze, I told you I want to find out who killed Everett. I meant it. Will you help me?’

‘I’ll help in any way I can.’

‘Not help. I shouldn’t have said help. I mean investigate, properly.’

‘But Scotland Yard is on the case, and were from the first moment.’

‘Huh! I know that the chief inspector is a friend of yours, but if you’d heard the questions his sergeant asked me today, you would be appalled. Meanwhile the perpetrator is out there and I do not feel safe.’