‘One dipso to another?’ She laughed, and he thought that in a happier relationship, she’d be a special sort of woman.
‘Something like that.’
‘It passes the time,’ she told him, ‘and after a bottle of vodka, even Tony looks appealing.’
Max could sympathize. Most things would look better after a bottle of vodka.
As he spoke, he’d been idly glancing at the books on the shelves. There were dozens of thrillers and murder mysteries - PD. James, Ruth Rendell, James Patterson, Agatha Christie and what looked to be a complete set by Arthur Conan Doyle. There were also a couple of books on Jack the Ripper.
‘Good bedtime reading,’ he said with a wry smile.
‘He used to be a member of the Jack the Ripper Society or whatever they call themselves,’ Liz told him. ‘Perhaps he still is. I remember him dragging me round London once. That was years ago. You can go on the guided tour and see the murder spots. He loves stuff like that.’
‘Really? God, he knows how to show a girl a good time.’
She laughed again, a light-hearted tinkling sound that made Max smile.
‘He doesn’t have the balls to kill anyone though,’ she said.
‘If he had, I’d have been pushing up daisies for years.’
Max pointed at the desk. ‘Does he do a lot of work from home? I suppose he does. They reckon teaching is all paperwork these days. A bit like my job.’
‘He works late quite often, but he doesn’t bring stuff home. Well, he says he works late,’ she corrected herself, her tone bitter, ‘but who knows what he’s doing?’ She attempted to open the drawers, and seemed surprised to discover that one side was locked. ‘That’ll be to keep the cleaner out,’ she explained. ‘Molly Turnbull cleans here a couple of afternoons a week. You’ll have seen her up at the vicarage.’
‘Nosy, is she?’
‘No more than most,’ Liz said, ‘but Tony likes to keep things from her. The trouble is, he’s always too lazy to fetch the key so he ends up shoving stuff in the unlocked side. It’s just crap - bank statements and stuff like that. I’ll get the key for you. Not,’ she added with a grin, ‘that you’ll find his shotgun in there.’
While she was gone, Max studied the books more closely. As well as the fiction, there were a couple on forensic psychology.
It might not be the lightest reading material, but youcouldn’t arrest a bloke for that. They already knew he’d started a course in psychology and they knew he was a fan of Jill’s work and films like The Silence of the Lambs. All the same, it didn’t sit comfortably with Max.
‘Here you are,’ Liz Hutchinson said, dangling a small key from her fingers.
Grace took the key from her and unlocked the drawers.
‘I’ll go and put some clothes on,’ Liz said, leaving them to it.
It was almost as if she wanted them to find some incriminating piece of evidence. In fact, if she’d known they were coming, she might even have planted something. She hadn’t known they were coming, though. He was being fanciful.
Max looked in the drawers and, this time, all the financial statements were stored neatly in folders in the top drawer. There was a lot more paperwork but none of it interesting - TV licence, house and contents insurance policies, receipts for a DVD player and an electric fire.
In the bottom drawer was what at first glance looked to be unused school notebooks. On closer inspection, Max saw that newspaper clippings had been stuck in.
‘Good God, look at this, boss!’ Grace jabbed a finger at one of the clippings, a grainy photograph.
It was poor quality, but Jill was easily recognizable. A good quality copy of the same photograph had been hand delivered to her cottage.
Ella was relieved to see Tom in his chair in front of the TV.
She hated leaving him for long, but he was sound asleep, looking relaxed and comfortable.
This morning, she had caught the train for Manchester to meet up with Gemma Thornbury. They’d had a long chat over afternoon tea at the Lowry Hotel. Sitting grandly alongside the banks of the River Irwell, the five-star hotel was dubbed Manchester’s most fashionable venue. Ella didn’t doubt it.
It would have been a thoroughly enjoyable day if not for worries about Tom, and frustration when her train was delayed. She’d toyed with the idea of taking the car, but she hated driving in Manchester these days. Traffic often had the place at a standstill and Ella swore they changed the one-way system on a daily basis.
Still, she was home now and Tom was with her. He was snoring softly. Smiling, Ella sat back in the armchair, slipped off her shoes, stretched her legs and closed her eyes. She was shattered.
It was funny, she thought, how a mental picture of someone could be so far off the mark. She and Gemma had corresponded several times by email and she’d imagined Gemma almost the same age as herself. It had come as a surprise to meet a young woman in her thirties. Also, in her emails, Gemma had appeared a brisk, businesslike type. She had been lovely and Ella could have chatted to her all day.
Gemma was researching her family tree and had wanted to pick Ella’s brain. It had been exciting to share her knowledge of Rossendale with Gemma, and to be able to give Gemma a photograph of the girl’s great-greatgrandfather, a local mill worker …
Ella was nodding off herself when Tom woke.
‘How have you been, love?’ she asked, determined to keep her tone light and unconcerned.
‘Fine.’ He smiled that gentle smile of his. ‘How was your day?’
‘Interesting.’
She told him of her day, about chatting with Gemma over tea and cakes in the hotel.
‘And you’ll never guess who was on the train,’ she added.
‘Charles and Camilla?’
‘Tony Hutchinson and some girl.’ Ella thought back to the disturbing encounter. ‘I’ve no idea who she was. The type my mum would have said was no better than she ought to be, whatever that means. Early twenties, I suppose.
A brassy-looking girl. Showing too much cleavage and wearing a skirt that should have been sold as a belt.’
Tom laughed. ‘Your powers of description never fail to amaze me.’
“I wonder who she was.’
‘Heavens, Ella, it was probably a friend or relative of his and Liz’s.’
‘Never. If that were the case, he would have introduced me. When he saw me, he went so red in the face I thought he was going to explode there and then. He was up to no good, you mark my words. If looks could kill, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.’
‘You and your imagination.’
‘Before he knew I was there, he handed her an envelope.
They looked close,’ Ella said thoughtfully, ‘but not happy to be with each other if that makes sense.’
‘None whatsoever.’
Ella laughed. Perhaps Tom was right, and she was reading something into nothing. With so much on her mind lately …
There was only one thing on her mind, losing her beloved Tom. Somehow, and she had no idea how, she had to face up to the fact that soon he would be taken from her.
She wouldn’t think about it now, though. He was here with her, and that was all that mattered. They would take things a day at a time.
‘Gemma showed me her family tree,’ she rushed on, changing the subject, ‘and it was fascinating. She’s a proper detective, that girl. But what did fascinate me - of course, Gemma wasn’t interested in this - but what fascinated me was that her aunt fosters children. Have you heard Bob Murphy mention his Aunt Jenny? His foster mother? Lives in Stockport? Well, this Jenny is Gemma’s aunt. What a small world we live in.’
“I knew he’d moved here from Stockport, but no, I don’t know of Aunt Jenny’
‘Oh, I knew he’d been fostered. According to Gemma, his mother died in a house fire. Anyway, I must remember to tell Bob about young Gemma.’
‘He’s done well for himself has Bob,’ Tom said. ‘A cracking little business he’s got there and plenty of friends.’
‘No real family, though,’ Ella said, ‘and a good business can’t take the place of family.’
‘That reminds me,’ Tom said suddenly, ‘we’ll have a word with him and see if he’ll do that front wall. I don’t know why we didn’t get him to do that when he did the work on the kitchen.’
‘I’ll give him a call in the week,’ Ella promised, amazed that Tom could worry about garden walls when his life was ebbing from him.
Her mind drifted back to her meeting on the train with Tony Hutchinson. Even allowing for an over-active imagination, there had been something odd about that. The
way he’d handed over that envelope had been shifty. He’d looked about him and then, just as he was handing it over, spotted Ella.
His face had quickly broken into a smile. It had been a cold, forced smile that had stopped a long way short of his eyes.
Ella wondered about Liz and, not for the first time, her heart filled with sympathy. No wonder Liz had a drink problem. Everyone in the village knew that Tony was an incorrigible flirt. Ella guessed it went deeper than flirting, too. It was none of her business, but she suspected Liz had a lonely existence.
That woman he’d been with was too young to be his mistress. What nonsense, she scoffed. No one would be more thrilled than Tony to discover he could still attract someone so young.
She could have been one of those escorts, she supposed.
Ella had no idea how the system worked, but didn’t men pay to have young women accompanying them? That would explain the envelope he’d handed over. And didn’t those women often perform sexual favours?
Ella smiled to herself. She had no idea; and she wasn’t sorry about that.
‘What’s amused you?’ Tom asked curiously.
‘That woman with Tony Hutchinson,’ she told him. ‘I’d just mentally booked her as one of those escorts. The sort that are paid to go out with men. I then wondered if these men had their wicked ways with them.’
‘And do they?’
‘I’ve no idea what they do/ Ella chuckled, ‘and I’m way too old to find out.’
It was the Sunday before Christmas, a bright, crisp, clear day. It was getting chilly now, but the sun had made it pleasantly warm during the day.
Jill had bought a book giving details of easy, moderate and difficult walks in the area and today she’d chosen a moderate one. Unfortunately, the author’s idea of moderate wasn’t quite the same as Jill’s. Her legs were protesting and she still had quite a trek home. Perhaps she couldn’t blame the author for that; she’d spent too much time in front of a computer lately and was out of condition.
There was another reason she couldn’t blame the author; she had a feeling she’d strayed from his route. She’d had a vague idea of where she was, though, and when she came to New Line reservoir, she knew exactly where she was, about to head out on to the Bacup to Rochdale road.
She walked by the side of the lake and smiled at the way the ducks and geese spotted her and rushed over.
‘If I had any bread,’ she told them, ‘I’d be eating it myself. I’m starving - duck with orange sauce sounds good to me.’
With disgruntled quacks and squawks, they swam or flew off.
Jill wished she’d brought her camera. The sun was sinking fast, leaving everything bathed in warm light, and the scenery was stunning. The hills rose behind the lake, the steep fields separated by old stone walls. Sheep were white spots on the hillside.
She’d visited her parents yesterday and had been shocked by her mother’s appearance. Since her last visit, three or four months ago, Mum had aged. Yesterday, she’d looked grey, tired and old. Her X-ray had revealed something on her lung and, although Mum was reluctant to discuss it, that constant cough had spoken for itself. She was having an exploratory operation in the morning.
Jill refused to think about it. The whole purpose of this walk had been to take her mind off it.
She was about to continue on her walk when she spotted someone heading for one of the benches. Again, the ducks and geese gave this person a noisy welcome. This time, they were rewarded.
She watched the person throw bread on to the water for a full minute before she realized it was Ella Gardner. She walked across to join her.
‘Jill! What are you doing out here?’
“I could ask the same of you. I’m out for a walk and think I probably took the wrong turning. What about you?’
‘I’ve been doing some last-minute Christmas shopping,’
Ella explained, ‘and I often stop here on the way home.
Today, I even remembered to bring the stale bread.’
Ella looked tired. She also looked as if she had the problems of the world on her shoulders.
‘You OK, Ella?’
‘Mmm? Oh, yes, I’m fine.’ She smiled, but it looked a little forced to Jill.
‘Isn’t it lovely here?’
‘A gorgeous spot, isn’t it?’ Ella agreed. ‘Did you see that film - Whistle Down the Wind?’
‘That’s one of my all-time favourites. Alan Bates is the escaped convict and Hayley Mills one of the children who believes he’s Jesus.’
Smiling, Ella nodded. “I love it, too. Some of it was filmed round here, you know. One of the tunnels was used.
Of course, the tunnels are either blocked up now or used for storage. And there’s a good view of the old mill’s chimney …’
They chatted about other films they’d both enjoyed but Jill still thought Ella had things on her mind.
‘You sure you’re OK, Ella?’
‘Yes. It’s just that - well, you’ll know the police have been questioning Tony Hutchinson?’
Jill inclined her head slightly, not sure she could discuss the matter with Ella. ‘They’re bound to.’
‘Because his gun was stolen, yes.’ Ella was thoughtful.
“I saw him on the Manchester train the day before yesterday.
He was with a young girl. I didn’t recognize her, but he looked shifty, Jill. He handed her a well-stuffed envelope and then he spotted me. The way he looked at me ‘
Ella shuddered. “I told Tom all about it and made light of it for his benefit, but it made me quite nervous. It was more than anger, somehow.’
Jill was intrigued. She guessed it would take a lot to unnerve Ella.
Ella recounted the incident and gave Jill a good description of the girl involved.
‘Are you telling me this in confidence, Ella, or can I pass it on to someone who might be interested?’