Late of This Parish (15 page)

A small woman with a figure that was curiously asexual and a prim, narrow, buttoned-up face devoid of make-up, she might have been any age between thirty-five and fifty. Her dead-straight brown hair was parted at the side and held in place with a tortoiseshell slide. She wore a shapeless grey skirt that was much too long, and a neutral coloured jumper with a V-neck, apparently hand-knitted. The whole effect, Mayo realized after a moment or two, was of a bizarre throwback to the nineteen-thirties. It was dowdy and ageing, but he doubted if Ruth Lampeter was aware of that, or even cared.

‘We're making inquiries into the death of the Reverend Mr Willard, which you've probably heard about, Miss Lampeter.'

‘Of course I've heard, they've been talking about nothing else all morning, but I don't know why you've come to me. I never had anything to do with him, except sometimes to sell him a few stamps.'

Mayo noticed how precisely she spoke, articulating the syllables in an old-maidish way, with no trace of the local accent. He sensed an obstinate nature that would defeat any attempts to get her to cooperate. She was like a blank slate that would resist all attempts to write upon it. He pitied her schoolteachers. And wished he'd brought Jenny Platt along with him – although on second thoughts, perhaps not. He didn't think it was in Ruth Lampeter to be communicative with anyone, man or woman.

‘We're not singling you out, Miss Lampeter,' he said. ‘We're talking to everyone in the village, asking them where they were yesterday.'

‘Well, I was here in the shop, as anyone in Wyvering could tell you.'

‘What time did you close?' Kite asked.

‘Half past five, the same time I always close on Saturdays. After cashing up, we tidied the shop. I stayed in all evening and went to bed at ten.'

‘We, you said. You've an assistant?'

‘I meant my brother,' she answered reluctantly.

‘Danny?' She nodded. ‘Maybe we could speak to him as well?'

Perhaps because of that inadvertent ‘we' she became, if possible, even more close-lipped. ‘No, you can't. He's gone away for a few days.'

‘He has, has he? That's interesting. When did he go? And where?'

‘He went as soon as we'd finished yesterday. Well before six, at any rate. He didn't stay for supper.'

‘You're sure about that?'

‘Positive. And I don't know where he's gone. Why should I? He doesn't have to tell me everything.' Her words implied indifference but the cool precise voice had sharpened a semi-tone. ‘What do you want to see him for anyway? He's done nothing, he was here with me all afternoon.'

This woman, as unattractive as the claustrophobic little room where they sat, depressed Mayo. He tried to imagine her singing, or laughing, or in bed with a man, and failed in every dimension. ‘If he's done nothing, he's nothing to worry about – which makes me wonder why he's disappeared.'

‘I didn't say he'd disappeared. He'll be back.' An ugly colour suddenly suffused her face and neck before receding and leaving her paler than ever. ‘You can't leave him alone, can you? It was just the same over those badgers. It's horrible to think of anyone killing them – horrible! And Danny wouldn't have, I know he wouldn't! He told Wainwright he didn't have a gun but it made no difference. Now everyone in the village,' she said bitterly, ‘is convinced he shot them, and they'll think the same about old Willard.'

There was more here than the hostility and uncertainty engendered in even the most law-abiding people when being questioned by the police. She was afraid, too, and yet he didn't think she would easily be frightened – not for herself, that is. ‘You've no idea where he's gone? What about a girlfriend?'

‘He doesn't have any.' Not that you know about, said Kite's look as he wrote down ‘No known girlfriends'.

‘Does he often go away like this?'

‘He does as he pleases. I'm not his keeper.'

‘You're sure you don't know where he's gone? Think again.'

‘I've told you, no.'

‘In that case, we may have to put a call out for him.' She drew in an almost imperceptible breath. Her hands were already tightly clenched, as they had been throughout the interview. ‘Please give the sergeant here the details he needs.'

Kite flashed her his Robert Redford smile, intended to put her at her ease as he asked her questions about Danny's motorbike. A waste of time, smiling, Mayo could have told him. Sexy or otherwise, it would cut no ice with Ruth Lampeter.

‘Did your brother enjoy working for Mr Willard?' he asked when Kite had finished writing.

She shrugged. ‘It was a job. He hadn't been there long.'

‘How did he come to work for him?'

‘I know Laura. I went to school with her. We used to be friends.'

It wasn't easy to imagine Laura Willard with her warm brown eyes and emotional nature and this reserved, unresponsive woman having anything to say to each other, much less being friends. He noted the past tense and remembered Laura Willard had also used it.

‘Do you have a photograph of your brother?' Kite asked.

With a mixture of pride and defiance she produced a snapshot from a drawer, taken, she replied when asked, only the week before. Danny wore his hair long, but slicked straight back from his face into a pony-tail. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, a muscular figure hard-packed into tight jeans and T-shirt. On one forearm a snake entwined itself around a naked, busty female form, on the other a wreathed death's head was tattooed. He had light, downward-slanting eyes under heavy brows and a heavy square chin. He looked as if he wanted trouble.

When they had gone, Ruth took a pile of papers from the cupboard where they were hidden and put them on to the fire with an extra shovelful of coal, pulling open the damper so that the flames roared up the chimney. Impassively, she stood watching and only when she was sure there was nothing left did she move away.

Selecting a few ingredients for an unimaginative salad from the fridge, she proceeded to prepare an early lunch. She never ate breakfast and had been up early, marking the Sunday papers for delivery and then dealing with the usual regular stream of customers, with barely time for a cup of tea. When the salad was assembled she went into the shop and chose two pots of chocolate mousse from the keep-cold cabinet to follow. She had a very sweet tooth.

Having first spread a spotless cloth on the corner of the table in the living-room and poured herself a glass of water, she switched the radio on for
Desert Island Discs
while she ate her meal. But the castaway this week was a comedian with a manic sense of humour who couldn't resist making jokes and trying to put Sue Lawley off her stroke, and his choice of music was incomprehensible to Ruth, so she switched it off and ate in silence.

Shrewd as he normally was in his assessment of character, in his judgement of Ruth Lampeter Mayo had been very much mistaken. Far from being the despair of her teachers, she had once been one of the bright hopes at the High School, but experience had taught her to keep her ideas and dreams and most of what she thought to herself. He would have been amazed at the richness of her inner life. She could lose herself in music and books, especially poetry. And while she served the customers in the shop and let their trivial conversation wash over and around her, she was sustained by the thought of the evenings and weekends to come, when she could draw the curtains and be alone to work, or leaf through holiday brochures while she decided where to take her next fortnight off. Not for Ruth the sun-soaked beaches of Greece and the Costa del Sol. She had once been to Greece, it was true, on a tour which had included Athens, Delphi, Epidaurus and Corinth. She had soaked up culture like a sponge, but it had been too crowded and too hot for her to really enjoy it. She preferred to go off-season to the museums, churches and art galleries of Florence, Venice and Rome, to wander at leisure round places like the Prado and the Louvre. Planning her next fortnight off was one of the greatest pleasures of her life, second only to the beliefs that sustained her.

Until recently.

Ruth passionately loved her brother Danny, while being fully aware of his faults. But loving him and having him to live with her all the time was not the same thing. In fact, since she had bought him out of the army after succumbing to the pressures of his endless moaning about his life there, fear had entered her life. For Danny and, to a lesser extent, for herself.

She stood up quickly and began to clear the table. She wouldn't think of it. It was better that way.

She had barely washed up her lunch things when there was a knock on the door.

The two women stood looking at each other for several seconds. ‘You'd better come in,' Ruth said.

Laura went in to the once-familiar living-room, which she hadn't entered for years. Nothing had changed. The same beige and green patterned wallpaper, even the crotcheted chairbacks from Ruth's mother's time still adorned the three-piece suite. The photograph of Mrs Lampeter, which might easily have been Ruth, still sat on the mantelpiece.

‘I'll make some coffee,' Ruth said, after her first awkward condolences to Laura had been offered and accepted.

‘It's Danny I really want to talk to, Ruth.'

‘He's not here – he's gone away for a few days.'

‘Where was he yesterday? He never turned up to do the garden.'

‘Didn't he?'

Ruth didn't look at Laura as she spoke and Laura said, ‘No, he didn't. Or if he did, he didn't do any work.'

Filling the kettle, spooning instant coffee granules into mugs, Ruth gave no answer.

‘Has he packed the job in?' Laura asked. ‘Naturally, I'd like to know, one way or the other.'

‘I don't know, I'm not his keeper,' Ruth answered sharply, which seemed to be a phrase that sprang easily to her lips these days. Translated, Laura guessed that meant: I wouldn't tell you if I did know, either.

They'd quarrelled about Danny before, or had words about him. At any rate, disagreement about him had always hovered on the edge of their friendship. It was in all probability the reason why they were no longer as intimate as they'd once been.

Of the same age, they had gone together to the Princess Mary school in Lavenstock, the only girls from Wyvering at that time. Laura went as a paying pupil while Ruth, a clever, self-contained girl, went on scholarship. They became firm friends. Then, instead of staying on and pursuing the brilliant future her school career so far had indicated as likely, Ruth left school at seventeen and thereafter they had gone their separate ways. What else could she have done? Her divorced mother had just been diagnosed as having contracted the progressive disease which was ultimately to kill her, and Danny, a postscript to their parents' unhappy marriage, was then only six years old. The income from the post office was a necessity, and so she'd left school to take her mother's place, much to Laura's disgust. Women, Laura argued, should not be expected to sacrifice their lives, etcetera, etcetera, accepting and quoting the received wisdom of the sixth form without much considering whether it was right or wrong. Not being an original thinker, however, she found the argument difficult to sustain in view of the circumstances.

And presumably, reflected Ruth, had found it no easier later: when faced with a not dissimilar situation herself, Laura had reacted in precisely the same way as she herself had done. Where were her advanced opinions now?

For nine years, until her mother died, Ruth kept things going and afterwards took over the post office and the responsibility for Danny. He had been a difficult child, a worse teenager. It was a relief when he finally decided to make a career of the army. His enthusiasm for the life hadn't lasted long, and when he found himself posted to Northern Ireland he was soon begging Ruth to buy him out which, after considerable misgivings, she finally did.

‘I saw him yesterday, Ruth,' Laura said. ‘I had an accident with my car on the Hurstfield road and came home in a taxi. He passed us going down the hill on his motorbike. Have the police asked about him?'

Ruth watched her in cold silence. ‘What are you implying?' she asked finally.

Laura took a deep breath. ‘I haven't told the police this, but I think you ought to know. It's not easy to say – but for quite a while now, we've been missing things from the house. I have to say my father was sure it was Danny who took them. It wasn't anything much until yesterday, when I found a gold brooch missing, and some other bits of jewellery as well. My father told me he was going to confront Danny with it.'

Ruth listened to what Laura had to say without speaking. ‘Somebody has killed my father, Ruth,' Laura went on. ‘I'm not saying it was Danny, good heavens, but you must see I'm going to have to tell the police I saw him. He won't have anything to fear if he hasn't.'

‘You have a better view of the police than I have,' Ruth replied.

There was a defiant look in her eyes. It wasn't new, when talking of Danny. She wasn't shocked, she didn't deny the possibility of him being a thief, but suddenly, she said, ‘I don't know why he didn't do your garden, but he was here all afternoon. The reason he left was nothing to do with anybody else ... In fact ... Well, you might as well know, we – we had a quarrel. He just stormed out and I don't know where he's gone.'

And suddenly her unresponsive face crumpled like a piece of used tissue paper. To Laura's horror, slow, heavy tears began to course down her cheeks, painful and somehow shocking. ‘I'll never forgive him. He's betrayed me.'

‘Betrayed
you?
'

‘That's what it looks like from where I stand.'

‘How? What can you mean?' Keeping her face averted, Ruth only shook her head. ‘You'll make it up,' Laura said after a long, awkward silence, wanting to comfort her, knowing better than to try.