Bones in the Barrow (6 page)

Janet Lapthorn was worried. That was bad enough, because she was the kind of woman who did not feel she was pulling her weight in the world unless the solving of her problems “took it out of her.” And so an outside anxiety, added to her usual personal strife, meant that her nerves were twitched and jangled more stridently with every day that passed.

What made her new, absorbing worry insupportable, was her helplessness in face of it. Here was the genuine thing; an unease for which she had no remedy. It made her home-brewed, artificially forced, troubles look rather silly. And she resented this very bitterly.

“Felicity can't be too busy,” she argued with her husband. “She can't have nearly as much to do now she's left Alastair as she did before, running the house for him.”

Seeing her husband was obstinately reading his evening paper, she went on, “I know you don't approve of what she's done, but I can't be disloyal myself, after all these years.”

The silence continued, so she added loudly, “
Can I
?”

This made Jack Lapthorn jump.

“Can you what?” he asked mildly.

“Let Felicity down.”

“Oh, Felicity—”

“Don't pretend you didn't know I was talking about her.”

“As far as I'm concerned, it's she who has let you down—and Alastair even more so. However, we've been over all that,” he added quickly, hoping to avoid a further fruitless argument. “So it just boils down to this, doesn't it? Felicity has stopped answering your letters.”

“Or been prevented.”

“How?”

“I don't know.”

Jack Lapthorn put down his newspaper thoughtfully.

“You never met her … this chap she's bolted with?”

“No.”

Not for the first time Janet reflected that her husband had an uncomfortable talent for humiliating her.

“No. She said she wanted me to meet him after they were married.”

“That means she is expecting a divorce.”

“I suppose so. Alastair wouldn't be so mean as to refuse one.”

“There
is
another point of view. He may consider the affair too flimsy to last, and not worth divorcing her for.”

“Too flimsy! Considering it has gone on since this time last year, just about! And she left him in July.”

“He may be going on what he knows of the other man. Trying to save her from future trouble. He's absolutely nuts about her, and terribly possessive. Always was.”

“I shall write to him. I wish we lived at Boxwood still. I've always regretted leaving there.”

Jack did not answer this. The move to Romford had meant promotion, so naturally he did not regret it. Women were queer about these things. Janet had worried her head off when promotion didn't seem to be on the way. Since the move she had been one long grumble over all she missed from their earlier days.

“I shall write to him,” repeated Janet, and taking her husband's continued silence as a form of disapproval, went to her desk, found notepaper and pen, and settled down to defy him, without delay.

After two weeks of impatient waiting an answer came. A friendly letter, explaining that Felicity was in Scotland, looking after an old school friend, who was convalescent from an operation and had no regular help in the house.

This letter annoyed Janet very much. Alastair must know she was Felicity's best friend. His bland assumption of her ignorance, and the implication that an earlier friend had prior claim on her affections, galled her not a little. She wrote again, more tartly, but still with caution, not mentioning her knowledge of the truth. She thanked him for his letter, pointing out that he had failed to give her Felicity's address.

Again Alastair Hilton wrote a friendly little note, but again it told Janet nothing. Nothing, that is to say, beyond the bare fact that Felicity was still away. There was no mention of Peter; she had not really expected it. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing, about Felicity's true whereabouts. No address, not even the name of the town or district in Scotland where she was supposed to be. And no surprise at Janet's complaint. He did not seem to mind that Felicity had cut herself off, not only from her husband and her home, but also from her best friend. There was no news about Boxwood, or their mutual friends, there. No mention of his chief hobby, no reference even to the Archaeological Society's branch to which he belonged, and whose meetings he was given to describing at quite boring length. He sent his regards to Jack and herself. He was hers ever—Alastair.

“Too proud to complain,” said Jack. “Very like him, poor beggar.”

“I can't think what's happened.”

“I can. Felicity has put herself beyond the pale, and she prefers not to have contacts with the world she has left.”

“That's nonsense. It sounds just like an Edwardian play. Heavy moustaches and boaters. Oh, I don't know how I can make jokes when I'm so dreadfully worried.”

“Don't make jokes, then. Go and make tea.”

“It's all very well for you to jeer. I'm fond of Felicity.”

“Damn Felicity!”

“All right. I'm sorry. You'll have to make your own tea, I'm going out. I'll put the kettle on for you.”

“What the hell—Janet, come back. Janet!”

But he was not answered, and presently a clatter of heels on the stairs told him that not only was Janet really going to desert him, but she had put on her best patent-leather court shoes to do it in. And that meant the feather hat and the black town suit. It was an outsize worry that was eating her this time, he reflected sadly. Deserted at four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. He did not know where Janet had gone, but he guessed London. It would take her a good hour to get there. He imagined she had gone up to find Felicity. If found, they might natter till midnight. He resigned himself to a dull evening, getting his own food, doing his own washing-up. But after two minutes of false resignation he rang up a friend and arranged to meet him at a local hotel in a couple of hours' time.

Meanwhile Janet Lapthorn travelled to London in a state of seething impatience. She had very little idea how she should act, but
something must be done
. The trouble was that Felicity had been so very secretive. When they met it was always at a theatre or a restaurant, and Janet had never known exactly where her friend was living, though she understood that there had been several moves. Landladies were always curious, Felicity had told her, and often suspicious. Though she and Peter were careful never to discuss their problems at their lodgings, unpleasantness usually broke out sooner or later. That was why Felicity insisted upon Janet addressing her letters to the Charing Cross Post Office. The system had worked quite well. Until Felicity had stopped writing.

Janet thought hard about these letters she had written. Could anything she had said have given offence to her friend? She had offered advice from time to time, certainly. But it had been genuine advice, given tactfully, she was sure. Felicity had often asked for her advice when they both lived at Boxwood. In fact she had been a perfectly reasonable being until she met this Peter fellow.

Janet sighed. It was no good going over and over the same ground; it was getting her nowhere at all. And it made her head ache and her heart pound uncomfortably. But she still had no idea what she would do when she got to Liverpool Street Station, nor how she would set about tracing her friend.

In the end she did the only thing open to her, apart from taking the next train back to Romford. She boarded a bus for the Strand, and made her way to Charing Cross Post Office.

First she asked if there were any letters for Mrs. Hilton. The girl went away and came back to inquire for the initial, if any.

“F,” said Janet, without thinking, and then added, “or more likely A.”

The girl stared at her, but went away again and came back with three letters. They were the last three that Janet had written, one at the end of January, and the other two in February.

“Is that all?” she asked, confusedly. She was trying to remember how many more unanswered letters she had written; she was sure there had been more than three.

“F or A Hilton? That's all. Only those three for A. None for F,” said the girl.

“It's the same. I mean—the same person—Christian name, or husband's initials,” Janet tried to explain.

The girl was entirely indifferent. She looked away across the Post Office, stretching her hand towards Janet without looking at her. “Have you got your identity card?”

“No. We don't have to have them now.”

“Ration book?”

“No.” Janet wanted her letters back. “It's not in this bag,” she added truthfully. “I didn't think it was necessary.”

This also was true: she had not thought at all.

The girl pushed the letters under the grille. That business of showing an identity card was always pretty silly, she thought. Anyone could fake the right name if it was worth it. Or reel off a number she couldn't check.

“Thank you,” said Janet, calmly, she hoped, and thrust the letters into her bag.

When she reached the door of the Post Office she stopped. She wanted to ask if the girl remembered anyone else asking for letters addressed to F. or A. Hilton. But that would mean confessing her deception and losing her prize. She had another and an urgent use for the letters. She walked away in the direction of Whitehall.

“You say these three letters are not the only ones to go unanswered?”

said the detective-sergeant who had been detailed to hear Mrs. Lapthorn's complaint.

“No. By no means. I have had no replies for at least four months.”

“How often did you write?”

“About every two weeks. Sometimes oftener, if we were arranging to meet.”

“You have not met since she stopped writing?”

“Naturally not.”

“There are telephones,” said the detective-sergeant briskly. He thought he knew the scandal-mongering, rumour-spreading type to which his visitor belonged.

“Of course. But she never seems to live where there is one. Now, I mean. Since she left her husband.”

“Did you ask at the Post Office what had happened to the other letters?”

“No. I was too confused and upset.”

“They were not returned to you?”

“No. If they had been I should have come here long ago.”

“They would be returned after a suitable interval. It may not be long enough yet, but we could check it, of course. Looks as if she had collected them all, except the last three.”

“Unless someone else collected them for her. I got away with these three easily enough.”

“So I see. Now tell me, Mrs. Lapthorn, what exactly worries you so much? The fact that Mrs. Hilton appears to have given you up, or the fact that her husband is not prepared to confide in you? Or something else?”

Janet Lapthorn flushed. The officer's tone was unmistakable. He thought she was an undesirable busybody; if nothing worse.

“Felicity Hilton was a very great friend of mine,” she said with dignity.

“Was?”

It had seemed natural to use the past tense, but she shivered as the police officer drew her attention to it.

“Oh, can't you see how worried I am?” she cried in desperation. “Wouldn't you be worried if a friend you saw and corresponded with regularly, at very short intervals, suddenly seemed to melt into thin air? Only it wasn't so thin about the time she disappeared.” Seeing the puzzled expression on the sergeant's face, she added, “Fog, you know. Last November.”

It was the combination of the two words that struck fire in the sergeant's brain. Fog. November. The list of missing persons. November. Fog.

“Excuse me,” he said, rising. “I should like to get hold of someone who will be extremely interested in what you say.”

Half an hour later Mrs. Lapthorn had repeated her rather scanty information to Chief-Inspector Johnson, stressing her anxiety and mounting fears. He was calm and noncommittal.

“It appears from what you tell me that this lady, Mrs. Hilton, had left her husband for another man. She may, of course, wish to conceal her whereabouts for a variety of reasons.”

“Not from me,” said Janet Lapthorn fiercely. “She knew she could trust me with anything. Besides, what if I did tell Alastair, that's her husband? He must know. He's giving her an allowance.”

“Do you happen to know where she banks?”

“In Boxwood it was the Westminster. But I don't know if she went to another branch or a different bank after she left.”

Something might be done through the bank, thought the inspector.

“Are we sure that her husband really knows where she is? We only really know that he has not given you her address.”

“Of course he knows. And he has no reason to keep it from me.”

“People do not always act reasonably.”

Janet glared at him. She was getting precisely nowhere; she was tired; she was hungry. Self-pity and anger overcame discretion.

“You sit there, trying to get out of making the right inquiries, when I tell you Felicity Hilton has been done away with, and most likely her husband is responsible! And you won't even listen!”

She burst into tears, not bothering even to get out her handkerchief.

Chief-Inspector Johnson was used to tears. He knew all the varieties, and was seldom moved by any. He waited patiently until his visitor recovered herself, and then changed the subject.

“Tell me, Mrs. Lapthorn, what sort of man was this—er—Peter? By the way, what is his surname?”

“I don't know.”

“Then you never met him formally? I mean, no introduction or anything of that sort?”

“I never hear people's names when they are introduced.”

“Quite. A good many people don't listen. So you only know him as Peter.”

“I only know
of
him as Peter.”