Everything was as it should be.
‘Right,’ Max said, ‘get on the phone. Ring Tony Hutchinson and thank him for the flowers.’
‘What? Are you mad? What if Liz answers? I can’t ‘
‘Just do it, Jill.’
She hesitated, but only briefly. Perhaps Max was right. If Tony Hutchinson was playing a sick joke on her, it was time she put a stop to it. But if he wasn’t - and she honestly didn’t think he was - she’d be making a fool of herself. Still, better a fool than a nervous wreck.
She had to look him up in the phone book and, after hesitating again, tapped in his number. He must have been right by the phone because he answered it on the first ring.
‘Tony? Tony, it’s Jill Kennedy’
‘Hello there, this is a nice surprise,’ he said jovially.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘To tell the truth it’s a little delicate. Is Liz there?’
‘She’s isn’t, no.’ He laughed softly. ‘Now you’ve got me intrigued. What is it, Jill?’
‘The flowers,’ she said. “I wanted to say thank you, but really, I’d rather you didn’t. Liz is ‘
‘Hang on a minute,’ he cut her off. ‘What flowers?
I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, erm …’ She gave a light-hearted laugh. ‘You mean it wasn’t you?’
‘Unless you tell me what you’re talking about, I can’t say, can I?’
‘You didn’t send me flowers?’
“I didn’t, no.’ He sounded uncomfortable with the idea.
‘Jill, I don’t know what gave you that idea, but if you have a secret admirer - well, I admire you - but if someone is sending you flowers, I’m afraid it isn’t me. Were they sent through Interflora? If so, I believe you can contact them and’
‘No, it wasn’t Interflora. Sorry, Tony, I’ve got completely the wrong end of the stick. Something on the card made me think of you and I thought - well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. Forget it, will you? Please? I’ve made enough of a fool of myself.’
‘Not at all. Really, Jill, if I weren’t a happily married ‘
‘Please, no more about it. Thanks, Tony. Goodnight.’ Jill cut the connection.
She looked at Max and shook her head. ‘He didn’t know anything about it. I believe him, too.’
‘OK, but you’re not spending the night here/ Max told her. ‘Shove the cats in their cages and put them in the back of my car. Then pack a bag. Tomorrow, we’ll get all the locks changed, but tonight you’ll have to stay -‘ He broke off. ‘Somewhere else,’ he finished.
Dear God. Did he really think someone was listening to their conversation?
For Jill, that was the final straw. She went to her bedroom, and packed an overnight case. Then she put three protesting cats in boxes.
That maniac, whoever he was, had been in her cottage. He had touched her things, and walked through her rooms. The knowledge made her feel sick, and she didn’t start feeling better until she was sitting in Max’s car again.
‘Who has a key to your cottage?’ Max demanded as he drove.
‘No one. Not a soul.’ She was struggling to talk, and she knew her teeth were about to start chattering. ‘Unless someone has one from the time Mrs Blackman lived there.
She was elderly and neighbours might have kept spare keys in case she needed anything. Helpful neighbours don’t make killers, though.’ She tried to think. “I asked Bob Murphy, you know, the builder, if he wanted one, but he didn’t. He said he didn’t like having people’s keys.’
‘What about Andrew Collins?’ Max asked. ‘He sold the house to you so who’s to say he didn’t keep a spare?’
‘No one,’ Jill admitted. ‘He said he gave me all the keys he had but I don’t know. I suppose anyone could have one.’
Max was idly shuffling papers on his desk, but his mind wasn’t on his work.
The locks had been changed at Jill’s cottage and she was adamant that, tomorrow, she would go back home. Getting into Fort Knox without being seen would have been easier, but he still didn’t like it.
Who the hell would put sodding roses and candles in her cottage? Apart from Valentine?
Grace knocked on his door and pushed it open.
‘Guv, there’s a lady outside, a Mrs Margaret Green, who wants to speak to you. She says she has important information about Alice Trueman, and won’t speak to anyone but that nice Detective Trentham she’s seen on the television.’
‘You’d better show her in then,’ Max said, adding a grim, ‘Another crank is just what I need this morning.’
Grace grinned and went away again.
The woman she showed into his office didn’t look like a crank. She did, however, look very nervous. Nervous enough to get Max intrigued. He introduced himself, and shook her hand.
‘I’ve seen you on the television,’ she said.
‘Yes. Please, sit down.’
She took a deep breath, fiddled with her black handbag, and looked straight at him. Margaret Green would be in her late fifties, Max supposed. A slim woman, fairly tall, with her hair styled neatly and a very erect carriage.
She was wearing a dark blue skirt and jacket. A teacher perhaps.
“I hope I’m not wasting your time, Chief Inspector, but ever since I saw the story on television about Alice True man, I thought I ought to say something. It’s been preying on my mind.’
‘Did you know Mrs Trueman?’ Max didn’t want to rush her, but he felt the stirrings of excitement. She was no crank, he was sure of it.
‘Sort of. Well, only by reputation,’ Margaret Green said, ‘and it was a long time ago. A very long time ago. I always wanted to be a dancer, you see, and I saw her in a few shows. She was good. A lot of it was her bubbly character and her natural sensuality coming through. There was never anything forced about her performances.’
So how the devil had Alice Trueman, with her bubbly character and natural sensuality, married Jonathan True man and settled for what Max was convinced had been a stifling life at the vicarage?
Come to that, if Margaret Green only knew her by reputation, what was she doing in his office?
She fiddled with the straps on her handbag again.
“I didn’t have what it took to be a dancer,’ she continued, ‘and my parents wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. So, instead, I trained as a nurse and got a job at a private clinic in Middlesex. The clinic offered vasectomies, fertility treatment, terminations …’ Her voice trailed away.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ Max asked, but she shook her head.
‘One day, a young girl was brought in for a termination.
She was just eighteen, I learned. It was Alice Trueman except in those days, of course, it was Alice Walshingham.’
‘Are you sure it was her?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She thought for a moment. “I knew it was her immediately, even though she was booked in under a different name. It was her age that surprised me but, apparently, she’d been dancing with Mainly Legs since she was fifteen. She was the youngest member the group had ever had.’
‘And she had an abortion?’ Max asked.
‘Yes. Sadly, there were complications and she was quite poorly. She was with us for over a week, I remember.’
‘Why did she book in under a false name? She wasn’t that well known, was she?’
‘No, but her father thought he was,’ she said grimly. ‘He was a lawyer and he disapproved of her boyfriend.
I gather the termination was at his insistence. He was something of a bully.’
Adrian Walshingham was dead now, as was Alice’s mother, but from what Max knew of the man, the fact that he was a bully didn’t come as any great surprise.
‘One day when I was on duty/ Margaret Green continued, ‘poor Alice cried and cried for her lost baby. She was distraught. I talked to her. Tried to console her.
I thought that if I spoke of her dancing, it might remind her that she had plenty to live for. I told her I’d seen her on the television and knew who she was. She didn’t care about people knowing who she was, about dancing, about anything. All she wanted was the child she’d lost. And her boyfriend, of course.’
‘Do you know who that man was?’
“I don’t,’ Margaret admitted. ‘He wasn’t allowed anywhere near her. Alice’s father made sure of that. Let me think - she did talk of him. She cried for him. Jim, that was his name. He was a student.’ She frowned. ‘He was studying something a bit different - ah, yes, I remember. He was at horticultural college.’
A gardener called Jim!
‘He was at horticultural college in Middlesex?’ Max asked.
‘Yes.’ Margaret Green tugged nervously on her handbag’s straps. “I doubt if the poor girl ever saw him again.
I imagine, however, that the murder of that child, as she saw it, haunted her until her death. I was pleased to read she’d had a son, though. I remember at the time that there were doubts about her ability to have more children. She must have gained a lot of pleasure from her son.’
‘Yes. Yes, I believe she did.’
‘Do you have children?’ she asked softly.
‘Yes, two boys.’
‘Then perhaps you’ll be halfway to understanding how that poor girl felt.’
‘Yes.’
Max couldn’t understand, though. His own father was a gentle, loving man. He’d been a strict father, but fair.
All he had ever wanted for Max was his happiness. How could anyone understand how it felt to lose your own child, simply because your father disapproved of the child’s father?
‘That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid,’ Margaret Green said, getting to her feet.
Max also rose. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Thank you for coming to see me.’
‘Have I?’ She sounded surprised.
‘You have.’
So helpful that Max now had to go and arrest Jim Brody for the murder of Reverend Jonathan Trueman.
The thought filled him with no satisfaction whatsoever.
Max and Fletch arrived at Brody’s house just as Brody was pulling up outside.
He got out of his van slowly, his dog running ahead slightly to see who the visitors were. Holly licked Max’s hand, but Max couldn’t look into those huge, trusting brown eyes. He was about to take her master from her.
This was wrong. It should have been Alice’s father they were putting away.
‘He’s a murderer, guv,’ Fletch pointed out grimly, as if he could read Max’s thoughts.
‘He is, Fletch, and in his position, I’d probably be one, too.’
Brody walked over to them. He waited for them to speak, but no one did. Fletch must have been waiting for Max, and Max couldn’t find the words.
‘How did you find out?’ Brody asked at last.
‘A nurse came to see me,’ Max explained. ‘She looked after Alice when she had her termination.’
Brody’s eyes filled with pain, but all he said was, ‘Right.’
Max left the formalities to Fletch.
Fletch was already leading Brody to the car when Brody stopped and looked at Max.
‘Holly,’ he said simply. ‘She’s eight, and I doubt I’ll see her again before she’s gone. She don’t take to people as a rule and might be difficult to - well, will you see to her, please?’
See to her? Put her out of her misery?
Max looked from Brody to the dog and back again. It was far easier to look at Brody than the dog.
‘Yes, I’ll see to her,’ he promised.
‘Thank you.’ Those two words were spoken with a quiet dignity that had Max wondering, not for the first time, what had happened to justice.
‘We’ll put her in the car with us,’ he decided. Brody had known enough grief in his life. Max was damned if he’d grieve for his dog, too. ‘Front seat.’
‘You what, guv?’
‘You heard.’
Fletch had heard; he simply didn’t believe it. He didn’t like it either.
Holly sat in the passenger seat, facing the back of the car and panting as she stared at her master. Fletch drove and Max sat in the back with Brody.
They were almost at the station before Brody spoke. ‘We were so happy when we knew Alice was going to have our child, you know.’
Max looked at him. ‘Did you follow her here?’
“I would have followed her to the ends of the earth.’
‘And her husband killed her because she was finally going to leave him for you?’
‘Yes. Her father, her husband - they were both the same.
They had to own her. She wasn’t even allowed to think for herself.’ He shook his head in disgust.
‘Why did she marry Jonathan Trueman?’ Max asked curiously.
‘Her father liked him so Alice was persuaded to marry him. Alice liked him in her own way, too. He was a good enough husband to her - so long as she stayed with him.’
He fell silent again, and they were soon back at the station.
It was late that night when Max finally drove home. He was tired, and in no mood to have a dog whining on his back seat.
“I don’t like this any more than you do, Holly, but the choice is yours. You can either have a trip to the vet’s, a quick shot and end up being cremated, or you can come with me and make friends with Fly - always assuming Fly doesn’t swallow you whole. So what’s it to be, eh?’
Holly threw her head back and howled.
‘Bloody hell!’
Max grabbed a CD, one of Harry’s, put it in the player, increased the volume by several decibels, and allowed Eminem to drown her out.
‘Yes, I know it’s shite,’ he told her, ‘but it’s a bloody sight more tuneful than you.’
Eminem had the power to silence the dog, but Max could feel her accusing eyes boring into the back of his head …
Harry and Ben were still up when he walked into the house with a reluctant Holly following. Jill was in the process of picking up several model cars off the floor.
There was no sign of Kate.
It was good to be home, despite the mayhem that followed.
Predictably, Fly raced around the newcomer and then jumped all over her. Holly stood still, trembling slightly, and trying her best to ignore the fuss. Meanwhile, Max attempted to answer his sons’ many questions.
‘Her owner’s had to go away, and she doesn’t take to strangers. I thought we’d see if she’d settle here with us. If not …’ If not, what? It would be no use trying to rehome her, and Max didn’t relish taking her to the vet’s. He certainly couldn’t mention such a fate to Harry. ‘If not, we’ll have to think of something else.’