Lois Meade 14 - Suspicion at Seven Read online

“Right. First of all, we get our money back, minus a few pounds. We do this by finding out from Lois’s friend Aurora who is taking over the jewellery business. I suspect she will do it herself. She must know all aspects of it off by heart, judging from the way she held the whole thing together that night when they did a party in Farnden. Then we get in touch and say we wish to remain in the scheme, but on our own terms.”

  “What d’you mean, on our own terms? You have to agree to the whole bit when you become a member.”

  “Ah, but that was in Donald’s day. Now, say, it is Aurora. She will be only too pleased to listen to my plan, I am sure. We start in the same way, except we do it straight. That is, we give a thank-you fee to Aurora for putting us in touch with the suppliers, and then we buy direct from them. As extra inducement, we say we will give her a small cut on any future orders we produce. Then, we carry on as and when we feel like it. No new recruits. Just us. And thanks to the good old Women’s Institute, we’ve both got enough savvy to do the organising, and a ready-made network of contacts to boot!”

  Gran frowned. “I see a fly in the ointment,” she said. “Supposing Aurora is not the boss, and the Blacks never have been? Suppose Donald was never top of the pyramid, never made the rules but just obeyed them?”

  “Easy,” said Joan. “We don’t bother. It would be a bit of fun, but nothing else. We’ve both got enough to live on, and there’s plenty of other things to do. A craft afternoon, for instance.”

  “And what craft were you thinking of taking up? I remember your last effort, Joan. A jersey with an ever-expanding neckline.”

  Joan began to laugh, and then Gran joined in, and they both agreed to meet again and never to take the whole thing too seriously.

  “But we’ll give it a go,” Gran said, not wanting to hurt her friend’s feelings. After all, Joan had given it a great deal of thought.

  TWENTY-TWO

  In her mother’s house, in a bedroom still decorated with teenage rubbish, Gloria Prentise considered what she knew of her cousin’s demise and that of her lover, Donald Black, who was indeed the boss of Brigham Luxury Jewellery. Her cousin, the woman found dead in bed in the hotel, the late Sylvia Fountain, had been one of his jewellery sellers as well as his well-established mistress. Sylvia’s brother Peter acted as cover when she checked into the hotel, and then, after dark, Peter would leave, and Donald Black would creep into her bed for a spot of slap and tickle before dawn. As far as his wife was concerned, he had apparently given her a convincing explanation, using his out-of-town business trips as necessary fixtures.

  Gloria knew all this from confidences exchanged with her cousin over a drink in the Purple Dog, and on occasion she had filled in entertaining a client when Sylvia was busy. Gloria was shattered at Sylvia’s violent death and was determined to do all she could to find her killer.

  She had tackled Donald on the day of the agricultural show and had tried a little gentle blackmail. For a small fee, she said she would keep quiet about him and Sylvia. They had been well shielded from public view, or so she thought, behind a potted palm and banks of flowers. He had dismissed her out of hand, and their meeting had ended acrimoniously. She had accused him directly of strangling her cousin—possibly in some gruesome game—and when it had gone too far, of legging it back home to Aurora. She had told him she had a friend at the cop shop who would be interested to hear her story.

  Donald had refused to do anything but deny it, saying it was his word against hers, and who would listen to anything a carrot-headed whore had to say? Her threats were pure opportunism, and he had had no hesitation in saying his wife was behind him every step of the way.

  Now he was dead, and Gloria was sitting in a café in Tresham, admitting to herself that she was frightened. She had loved her cousin Sylvia well, more as a sister. They had grown up together in the backstreets of Victorian terraces and scarcely ever ventured out of town. Until, that is, Donald Black had crossed their paths in a pub one night, and had fallen in an innocent way for Sylvia. She had made all the running, and had dreamed up the plan whereby they met regularly in the Mill House Hotel. The very proximity with his wife’s bakery and her home had added spice to their relationship.

  “Gloria Prentise! You look as if you’d lost a shilling and found sixpence! What’s up, girl?”

  It was Dot Nimmo, known to Gloria and her friends as the nosiest old nark in Tresham.

  “Nothing at all, except a small hangover from a heavy session in the club.”

  “You should know better,” Dot said, sitting down without being asked. “What’s new in the seedier side of town?”

  “Oh, get lost, Dot Nimmo!” Gloria said venomously.

  “Missing your Sylvia?” said Dot. “If you take my advice, you’ll make sure you don’t end up the same way. I used to know your father, God rest his soul, and promised I’d keep an eye on you.”

  “Sod off,” said Gloria, and pushing her chair back as she rose to her feet, she stalked off.

  Dot chuckled. They were all the same, these poor kids. Started badly with the wrong crowd and never escaped. Still, she would keep her eye on Gloria, as promised, and might well be useful to Mrs. M at the same time.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Aurora Black awoke with a sense of optimism for the first time since the dreadful day of Donald’s death. She had decided to continue the jewellery business herself, and had faced the fact that she would need some dogsbody help in the bakery. In order to set about this, she had drafted out an advertisement for the local paper, and would post it to the newspaper offices.

  “Young assistant required,” she had typed. “Interested in training in an old established bakery where bread, et cetera, is produced by hand in a traditional way. Apply to Brigham Bakery, telephone number, et cetera, et cetera.”

  That should attract the right sort of person, she reckoned. It could be boy or girl, of course. Or maybe neither! Working with floury hands in a tiny village in the countryside might not appeal. But, then again, the right person might well be looking for just such a job. She would see.

  The shop bell rang, and with the advertisement in her hand, she walked through to find Lois smiling at her.

  “Hi, Lois,” she said. “You’re earlier than usual. Will you have a coffee while I cool your loaves? You can check this for me.” She handed over the draft and led the way into the room behind the shop.

  Lois read the advertisement and nodded. “That’s fine. If I didn’t have New Brooms and ferretin’ to take up all my time, I’d apply meself. You always look so serene and attached to the real things in life when you’re working in your bakery.”

  “Not so sure about that! But you know you’d be welcome at any time to have a go at making your own bread. I could never understand why Donald never wanted to get floury hands . . . I suppose it wouldn’t have done if he was called for an emergency dash to fit someone out with a diamond-encrusted tiara. Still, it suited me.”

  Lois smiled. “Do I sense a certain disapproval of the jewellery scheme? Would you rather he had stayed with the chiropodist?”

  Aurora shook her head. “I don’t know what happened about that. He came home with this scheme for selling jewellery, and that was that. He was a very private man, Lois. Kept his secrets close to his chest. I didn’t mind, really, and when I was helping him with the parties, I got to know quite a lot about the business. Our two concerns dovetailed into each other quite nicely. I would make special tidbits to go with coffee at the parties, and help out with selling where necessary.”

  “So what are you going to do with it now? You must know pretty well every aspect of it. It sounds from this advertisement that you have made up your mind.”

  Aurora said that after a lot of thought, she had almost decided to give it a go. She would need extra help in the bakery for deliveries and other menial tasks. The actual baking she would keep for herself. Her customers expected her han
d-baked bread to be made by her hands only!

  “And who is going to help you with the jewellery parties? And no, I’m not offering the services of my mother and her friend Joan!”

  “No need,” said Aurora. “They’ve offered themselves.” She smiled at the look on Lois’s face, and said that so far she had not answered them. “They did very well at the agricultural show,” she added.

  “You didn’t see how my mum flopped out on the sofa all evening! Still, we’ll see, shall we? I’d appreciate it if you would keep me informed about Elsie and Joan.”

  “Certainly. Now, could you do me a favour, if you’re going into town? I’m a bit stuck here. Could you drop this ad into the newspaper offices in the High Street, and then it should go into this week’s classifieds.”

  Lois said she would be delighted. She had errands to run in Tresham, and it would be no trouble. “I do hope none of my girls think of giving bread making a try!”

  Aurora smiled. “We workers must stick together, and I promise if any one of your Brooms girls applies for the job, I shall turn her down. How’s that?”

  “You’re a brick. Now, is there anything else I can do for you in town? I have to see Dot Nimmo, and probably Hunter Cowgill. But I’ll still be around the High Street.”

  Aurora said the only brush she and Donald had had with the Nimmos had been to do with jewellery. “But the real thing, Lois. Some lovely stuff. Antique diamond rings, et cetera! Out of our league altogether.”

  “What’s more,” said Lois, “it had probably all been nicked! Must go. Bye, dear. Ring me any time.”

  * * *

  Dot had been about to go out when Lois had rung earlier this morning. “No, Mrs. M. Not a job. I was going to the supermarket. When did you want to come? Is it something urgent?”

  “Sort of,” said Lois. “How about eleven thirty?”

  Now, thinking about it, Dot was puzzled. They had had the lunchtime meeting yesterday, and Mrs. M had not mentioned anything special. Still, if it needed confidentiality, she wouldn’t have, would she? In any case, she herself had a lot to tell the boss.

  She busied herself about the house, tidying up and cleaning areas where Mrs. M was likely to see. “Me job’s cleaning,” she said to the old parrot, “but I can do without a spotless house meself. And you’re moulting, you disgusting old thing!”

  Lois drew up outside Dot’s house, and looked about. Not a soul, except for Hazel cleaning the office windows at the other end of the street.

  “Come on in, Mrs. M,” said Dot at the door. “Take no notice of the bird. I don’t know why I don’t give it its freedom.”

  “Because it wouldn’t last five minutes, that’s why. Poor old thing. He’s earned his retirement, hasn’t he?”

  Dot agreed that after her husband died, the bird was the only thing she had to tell how much she missed him. “Nimmos are supposed to be tough,” she said. “No, I shall wait ’til I find him upside down in his cage; then I shall bury him in the back garden.”

  Lois felt an overwhelming desire to ask her if that’s where she had buried her husband, but resisted it. “Yes, I’d love a coffee,” she shouted, as Dot disappeared into the kitchen.

  “So what’s on your mind, Mrs. M?” They sat by the window, and Lois watched as the Tresham Zoo van drew up outside a house.

  “Blacks, Aurora and Donald, that’s what,” said Lois. “I know I’ve asked you this before, but could you possibly either remember or discover anything else about them, particularly Donald? I know, of course, that Aurora has a daughter training to be a nurse. But Cowgill says they haven’t yet built up a satisfactory picture of their lives, especially family contacts, and so on.”

  “I don’t think I can get anything more from the Nimmo clan. And if they thought I was helping out the fuzz, they’d die of shock! So, no, not there. But as it happens, I do have something to tell you. Not exactly family, not in the sense you mean. But probably important.”

  “Come on, then, Dot, let’s have it!”

  “The woman found dead in bed in the Mill House Hotel? Yes? Well, she was Sylvia Fountain, of no fixed address, except a couple of rooms in the Purple Dog. Your friend Mrs. Tollervey-Jones, justice of the peace and hanging judge at the magistrate’s court, she will probably have had her up before the bench more than once.”

  “Where are we going with this, Dot? I do have to see Cowgill sometime this morning.”

  Dot nodded. “You may not know that the very same Sylvia Fountain was the longtime mistress of the late Donald Black, of Brigham.”

  “What?!”

  Dot took a deep, satisfied breath, and said that she thought Cowgill would reckon it was worth waiting for.

  “But they questioned him closely, I’m sure of that.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised how good these girls are at keeping their assignations secret. It is, after all, in their own interests. Sylvia used to check into the Mill House Hotel regularly with her brother Peter, supposedly for a quiet weekend. Then Peter was told to get lost, and Sylvia signalled the okay to a window in the bakery, and Donald slipped across the road like an overheated muffin!”

  “Dot! What are you saying? How could he have done such a terrible thing to Aurora? She must have known. Oh Lord, poor thing. Why did she put up with him?”

  “Perhaps he serviced her regular, too. Don’t tell me I’ve shocked you, Mrs. M. I thought you were bombproof!”

  “Oh, it’s not the loose living, Dot. It is the disloyalty, the selfishness! He obviously didn’t care two hoots, as long as he had his fun across the road.” She looked at her watch. “I must be off to see Cowgill. Can I tell him all this? I don’t want to get you into any trouble. I know the Nimmos still operate in the shadows in town.”

  “I think you’ll find much of this comes as no surprise to Hunter Cowgill,” Dot said. “Just don’t mention my name, if that’s okay. But there is more, if you’ve got time.”

  “Heavens! Go on, then, Dot.”

  “Sylvia had a friend, a cousin, not to be dismissed lightly. I’m talking about a fellow worker, and she is pretty sore about the death of her cousin and colleague. I wouldn’t trust her. I can’t tell you any more at the moment, but should I overhear anything of use, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Name?” said Lois.

  Dot shook her head. Lois left quickly and headed for the police station and the newspaper offices.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Cowgill first,” Lois said to herself, as she drove into the car park at the back of the police station. She went quickly through to reception and came face-to-face with her son-in-law, Matthew.

  “Lois!” he said. “Hello, Mother-in-Law. How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks. How’s Josie?”

  “Very well, and looking forward to seeing you when you next call in to the shop. Are you here to see me, or the inspector?”

  “Inspector Cowgill,” said Lois, “who is coming down the stairs at this very moment. Nice to see you, Matthew.”

  After a few more pleasantries were exchanged, Lois followed Cowgill to his office. “I don’t have much time,” she said, as he held a chair for her. She had done some rapid thinking in her car, and decided to consider further whether she should tell him the sensitive information Dot had produced. Aurora had never hinted at such goings-on. It certainly increased the possibility of Donald having strangled his mistress in the hotel. He wouldn’t have been the first man to find it necessary to get rid of an embarrassing association.

  “Lovely as it is to see you, my Lois, do you have anything new and relevant to tell me? You’re looking puzzled this morning.”

  Oh hell, she thought. “Well, I have just been to see Dot Nimmo, and she has told me the most extraordinary story about that woman who was strangled. She was apparently called Sylvia Fountain, which I’m sure you already know, but also she was a longtime mistress of Donald Bla
ck. Do you want the details?”

  He nodded slowly. “That confirms it, then. We know she was selling his jewellery on the side, but could not trace any evidence that she had held parties. Not that sort, anyway.”

  A silence fell, whilst he looked at her, smiling fondly.

  “Go on, then,” she said.

  “Tell me more,” he said. “I have every respect for Dot Nimmo as a source of information, and you are much more likely to receive her confidences than I am. The Nimmos and the police are at permanent loggerheads.”

  “I can’t believe it is as bad as that,” Lois said. “Surely Tresham is a gang-free town? And from what I hear, the great days of the fearsome Nimmo gang are almost over.”

  “Almost,” agreed Cowgill. “But there is a resurgence. A female whose name is Prentise. A cousin and big pal of Sylvia Fountain, and, I suspect, is behind several quite serious operations lately.”

  “Prentise? Sounds familiar. Does she have a Christian name?”

  “Gloria. Flaming red hair. Some say glorious, but experts say it is all out of a bottle. She keeps a low profile, and so far we have not managed to pin anything on her. But we bide our time, Lois. As you know.”

  “Not any further forward, then, in the case of Donald Black? Could it be a revenge killing? Avenging the death of Sylvia? Hey, there could be a connection here!”

  Cowgill raised his eyebrows. “Where?”

  “Water,” said Lois. “Sylvia Fountain and, in Donald’s case, death by drowning.”

  Another silence. Then Cowgill frowned. “Are you serious, Lois?”

  She stood up, laughing. “Of course not,” she said. “Now, I must be going. Keep in touch.”

  Then she was gone, and he sat shaking his head and smiling. She was like a ray of sunshine in his somber day. How wonderful it would be if she brought sunlight to him every day of the week!

  TWENTY-FIVE