The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (books for students to read TXT) 📕

Maple’s death certificate. He collected newspaper cuttings about her murder, tracked down the man in charge of the investigation, Inspector George Cotton, on his allotment living out what we suspect was an unhappy retirement. Cotton told William everything he knew.’ Jack paused for Stella to catch up on her spreadsheet. ‘Cotton told William who had murdered his mother.’

‘Flipping creepy he’s a doctor. Why not help poor dear Vernon with his garage?’ Lucie flicked a fig stem into the waste-paper basket.

‘Vernon told William he’d remembered Maple saying she was going to marry a doctor and that, one day, William would follow in his new father’s footsteps. William snatched at his mother’s dream and made it true.’

‘Andrea said her dad wanted to fulfil Maple’s dream. He went for pathology because he wanted to ensure dead women received respect. Cotton had told him Northcote called his female corpses Annie: “my Annies”, he’d say.’

‘Revolting.’ Beverly scowled.

‘Sounds like Andrea was a proper motormouth,’ Lucie huffed. ‘Didn’t Vernon tell the police Maple’s fiancé was a doctor?’

‘He only remembered she’d said it when he read in the paper that Julia Northcote had taken her own life. He did go to the police. By then Cotton and Shepherd had been moved off the force. The case was unofficially closed. Cotton told William that his boss had plenty of evidence pointing to Northcote, but the powers that be, specifically the coroner, buried it. This was 1940, the Blitz was in full swing and the government needed the public onside. The last thing they needed was for them to discover that a toff thought the rules didn’t apply to him and had strangled a decent girl from a respectable home. They hushed it up.’

‘So, this is the project that March nicked from Andrea.’ Lucie broke the ensuing silence.

‘As she told us, Andrea confided in March to keep him, but he stole the idea and cut her out in favour of me,’ Stella said to Lucie. ‘He never got the chance to ask me because he was murdered.’

‘Horses for courses,’ Lucie said obscurely. ‘If Andrea didn’t want March rootling in her past, why come to Tewkesbury with him?’

‘Have you ever been in love?’ Jack said, then regretted it. Lucie had been in love with Stella’s dad and neither woman needed to be reminded. ‘Any hope of keeping March was dashed when he discovered Stella’s name on the abbey cleaning rota.’

‘So, it was Andrea who tried to kill you on the country lane, on your way to the Death Café?’ Lucie said.

‘She says it was meant to be a warning to stay away from Roddy. Had she got to speak to me I’d have been able to say I’d only met Roddy once. On that morning in the abbey by the cadaver tomb.’

‘She’d never have believed you,’ Lucie said.

Jack saw Stella and Lucie exchange a look. Since sharing the flat, they’d formed a bond. It should please Jack, but he felt a twinge of jealousy that Stella had always made space for Lucie. He kept to himself that he too had believed Stella and March were an item.

‘Andrea followed you to the Death Café?’ Beverly asked.

‘No. Felicity was worried about having so few people for her session so she paid Andrea to go. When she arrived on the second night, Andrea found Roddy there. That convinced her I was in cahoots with March. But it was Andrea herself who told him I’d been there the first night which I’m guessing is why he came.’ Stella saved her spreadsheet. ‘Before you ask, Andrea didn’t attack me at the weir last night.’

‘Pigeon blood on her spade? A grave in the garden? She played you both.’ Lucie still had Andrea as top of the suspect chart.

‘The grave was a potato bed,’ Jack said. ‘She showed us the dead pigeon.’

‘You plant potatoes in March or April. Just saying,’ Lucie said. ‘My turn.’

Lucie put her phone next to her laptop so Jackie could hear it and played her illicitly recorded chat with Gladys Wren in the tearoom that morning.

‘…he’d said he would marry me. I’d have left but I needed the job and he’d have made my name mud in the town. That night, before Derek and me went to the pictures in Evesham, Derek proposed. He’d blown his wages on a gorgeous ring. Look.’

‘She’s showing me her diamond,’ Lucie said.

‘…I’d just said yes when Derek gets a shout to attend a barn fire. He wanted me to hand in my notice that night. He knew I hated it there, not that I’d said why or Derek would have swung for Sir Aleck. I went back all cock-a-hoop and told Sir Aleck I was leaving to get wed. He made me submit, one last time. I said no, but that didn’t bother him. I was up against the wall in that sitting room. It hurt worse than ever, while he was… while… he kept saying I’d led him on. That I was a common tart, did Mr Wren know that? That sort of language always got him in the mood. That time he had me by the throat.’ There was silence during which Jack could hear the clatter and chatter of the tearoom. ‘…I was scared stiff he was going to murder me.’

‘So, you killed him,’ Lucie’s voice said softly. ‘I know I would have.’

Jack knew Lucie would have fought and doubtless Northcote would have strangled her as he had Maple. Gladys Wren had gone for survival. Of a sort.

‘No,’ Gladys Wren hissed. Another silence in which Jack thought Gladys had left. Then, ‘…I was halfway home, we lived in Bredon’s Hardwick, outside of Tewkesbury, when I saw my brooch was gone. I’d sneaked it from my mother’s drawer to wear for Derek, I had a notion he’d pop the question. It must have come off when… I had to get it back.’

‘You weren’t worried Northcote would rape you again?’

Jack shut his eyes, Lucie had no soft pedal.

‘If Mother found her brooch missing, she’d go to the