Death and the Maiden (24 page)

The women were of the same generation, it was true; both in their forties, although Mrs Bullock was certainly the senior. But that alone wouldn't put them on first name terms—unless of course they had grown up together. And Jean had referred to herself as a Suffolk village child.

Quantrill joined her as she walked back towards her house. ‘I didn't realise that you came from Ashthorpe,' he said.

She looked surprised. ‘How did you come to know that?'

‘Oh, a policeman's nosey guess, I'm afraid. I heard that woman call you Jean, but you were obviously acquaintances rather than friends, so I thought that perhaps you knew each other as children.'

‘Yes, we did. My family lived here for about three years during the nineteen forties. Daphne was one of the big girls at the school—I can remember her as an alarmingly well-developed thirteen-year-old, while I was an undersized eight. I was terrified of her.'

He grinned. ‘I'm not surprised, after the earful I heard her give Mr Gedge yesterday. Did you know him when you were a child too?'

‘Yes—he used to serve in the shop until he went into the army. But I doubt if he remembers me, and he's certainly far too shy and polite to call me anything other than Mrs Bloomfield. Most of the other people I knew as a child have moved away, or died. It's a very different village, now.'

They reached Coburg House. Jean Bloomfield led the way down the hall towards the smell of freshly made coffee. The kitchen was a comfortable room of the kind that Quantrill liked, with modern pine furniture, pots of plants, and a cat asleep on a cushion on an old Windsor armchair. Molly liked her kitchen to be streamlined, hygienic; she discouraged sitting about in it, most of all by the cat.

Jean poured coffee from the percolator, which had been glugging quietly to itself as they came in. He looked away from what she was doing, disturbed by the fact that her hands were shaking as much as they had been the previous day. Then, he had attributed it to tiredness and shock. Now it began to seem like a permanent manifestation of stress.

‘I like your house,' he said quickly. ‘Have you lived here long?'

‘About eighteen months. When I first went to Breckham I lived in a modern flat, just by the river. It was very pleasant, and convenient for school, but when I heard that this house was up for sale I couldn't resist buying it. Do you know, it was my great childhood ambition to live either here or next door. My father was a farm worker. We used to live in one of the slummy old Ashthorpe yards—where the post-war council houses are now—and my mother came here to do the charring. I thought of these houses as mansions.' She sat on the bench by the table. ‘Do sit down. Move the cat, if you'd prefer the armchair.'

The cat, a Cyprus, was curled tight. A segment of yellow eye, luminous in the dark-striped fur, indicated that it was aware of the intrusion and did not wish to be disturbed. Quantrill sat down elsewhere.

‘And you enjoy living here?' he asked. ‘Has it risen to your expectations?'

Her eyes were dark with disillusion. ‘Does anything, ever? Oh, I certainly enjoyed redecorating and furnishing the house, and I had great hopes of being happy here. To be back in Ashthorpe seemed like a homecoming. The years we spent here when I was a child were the best we had. For once my father got on with the farmer he worked for, and there was plenty of overtime so money was easier. We had three happy years. Then my eldest brother was killed in 1945, and it broke the family up: my mother refused to believe that he was dead, my father started drinking again and lost his job, and mother finally took me to live with her sister. Things were never the same after that. But I've always thought nostalgically of the Ashthorpe years, and I suppose I imagined that I could recapture some of that happiness by coming back.'

‘It doesn't do, to go back,' observed Quantrill, who had never had reason to try.

‘So I realise. At the time, though, it seemed a good idea. I'd been so distressed by my husband's death that for years I couldn't settle anywhere. But he was a Suffolk man—Bloomfield's as old a Suffolk name as Quantrill, isn't it?—and we'd talked about returning one day to East Anglia. I was delighted to be appointed head of Breckham girls'grammar school, and then to find this house for sale. I really thought that life might begin again. Instead, it all seems to be falling apart.'

She turned away to find a cigarette, and lit it before Quantrill could produce his lighter.

‘But you've still got the house,' he argued, ‘whatever happens to the job.'

She shook her head slowly, speaking with her back to him as she went to open the window. ‘The house hasn't been a success,' she said. ‘This has always been a family home, you see. It's bigger than it looks—and what do I want with four bedrooms and two attics? I feel lost in it. I've hated living here alone.'

Her shoulders were downcurved. It occurred to Quantrill, for the first time, that a woman in a position of authority and responsibility, who lives alone in a small community where social life is geared to families or couples, must almost inevitably feel lonely.

But loneliness is not exclusive to women. And you can be just as lonely, he knew, inside marriage as out of it. Lonelier, sometimes.

He put his coffee mug on the table and stood up, calculating the distance between them. Three strides, and he could put his hands on her shoulders. Three strides, and they could both begin to put an end to loneliness.

And to his marriage. And to his job.

To hers too, probably. Small communities demand high moral standards, especially from those they isolate socially.

She moved away from the window, and Quantrill sat down abruptly. She returned to the bench. The cat raised its head an inch, opened both eyes sufficiently to survey her vacant lap, and took a considered decision to stay where it was.

‘You wanted to talk about Mary?' she said.

Quantrill jerked his mind back to his job. ‘I'm afraid I have some distressing news—' he began.

She spoke as gently as if she were comforting him. ‘I know. It's all right, I do know. Mike Miller rang me this morning. He'd heard it on the local radio programme—the police suspect foul play, he said.'

Solace was not, after all, going to be required. There would be no excuse now for taking her in his arms. He'd let the opportunity go for good, and he didn't know whether to be glad or sorry.

‘It does look like murder, I'm afraid,' he said. ‘The pathologist found that she'd been deliberately drowned. But—as you thought—there was no trace of drink or drugs, and she hadn't been assaulted in any way. As murders go, it wasn't a violent one. She'd have died quite quickly, I imagine.'

Jean Bloomfield carried his empty mug to the coffee percolator. ‘It was done by a stranger, presumably? I mean, everyone who knew Mary liked her—she hadn't an enemy in the world.'

‘We're still making enquiries,' said Quantrill, professionally evasive. ‘One of our handicaps is that we don't seem to know a great deal about the girl's private life, which is why I wanted to talk to you. Tell me, did you know that Dale Kenward wanted to marry her?'

‘To
marry
?' She stared at him, amazed. ‘Well, well … I had no idea, but come to think of it I'm not surprised. Dale Kenward is an extremely nice young man. If he was in love—and he
was
, that was obvious—then I'm sure he'd think in terms of marriage. Have you met him?'

‘Yes,' said Quantrill.

She heard officialdom in his voice. ‘Oh, no,' she said, appalled. ‘Surely you don't imagine that Dale would have killed her? He's not one of your suspects, is he?'

‘He's been helping us with our enquiries,' Quantrill agreed.

She ground her cigarette into the ashtray. ‘Then I'm sure you're wrong,' she protested vehemently. ‘I'm sorry, I realise I oughtn't to interfere, but I do know Dale. I get very little chance of sixth-form teaching now, there's always some middle school crisis when I'm timetabled for a senior class, but I did teach both Dale and Mary on several occasions last term and the term before. He genuinely loved Mary. The fact that he wanted to marry her is surely proof of that. Their love affair was touchingly serious. So many of them at that age are simply experimenting with sex—they think they've invented it, and they have to make sure that it works. But with Dale and Mary it was different, and I think you're wrong to imagine that he would harm her in any way.'

Quantrill accepted her reproof philosophically. ‘But I've heard from several sources that they had quarrelled,' he said. ‘I understand that although he wanted to become engaged, Mary didn't.'

Jean Bloomfield reached for another cigarette. ‘Yes, well—I can believe it. Mary loved Dale, anyone could see that; but she wasn't actually
in
love with him, as he was with her.' She got up and walked restlessly to the window. ‘Being in love,' she explained, ‘is exclusive. Loving isn't, and Mary had a great capacity for affection. She loved her family and she loved her friends. If she was
in
love at all, it was with the idea of going to Cambridge—so it's understandable that she didn't want to become engaged.'

‘That's what I told young Kenward. But he explained that he wanted to protect her from older men. He described her as being “unaware”. Would you agree with that?'

She returned to the table and took her own mug to the percolator, although it was still half full of coffee. ‘Yes,' she said after a moment's thought. ‘I know exactly what he meant, and I think that he was right to be afraid for Mary. You never saw her alive, I suppose?'

‘She was very attractive, I believe,' said Quantrill.

‘Yes. But it was a particular kind of attractiveness that some blonde girls have—a kind of radiant innocence. I don't mean the innocence of ignorance, but of simplicity—guilelessness. Yes, Dale was right: Mary was tremendously unaware. She trusted people indiscriminately. When she finally fell in love, she would have given herself totally, without reserve—and, I'm afraid, almost inevitably to the wrong man. Mary was a born victim.'

‘A
born
victim?'

‘Yes. Have you ever seen any of the old Marilyn Monroe films on television? She had a different personality, of course, but she radiated this same kind of virgin innocence that Mary Gedge had. Unfortunately, it's an aura that attracts the kind of man who—consciously or not—enjoys corrupting the innocent. Poor Marilyn Monroe was destroyed in early middle age. And obviously Dale could see the danger for Mary.'

Quantrill floundered. ‘Wait a minute! Are you trying to tell me that someone—another man—was trying to corrupt Mary?'

‘Oh no!' She spoke urgently, impatiently, trying to make him understand. ‘Don't you see, that's the whole point. Mary had always lived a very quiet life, and so far she was completely unscathed. But she'd have been preyed on as soon as she set foot in Cambridge, there isn't much doubt about that. She was looking forward to it so happily and innocently, imagining that it was all going to be wonderful, but heaven knows what would have been in store for her in the way of disillusion and heartbreak. No wonder Dale was worried for her, poor boy. But that doesn't for one moment mean—'

The telephone rang. She went to the hall to answer it and was back almost immediately, looking half-amused, half-embarrassed.

‘It's for you, Douglas. Sergeant Tait.'

‘How the devil did Tait know I was here?' grumbled Quantrill when he returned from the telephone. He had tried to bark at the sergeant, but had been so much elated that Jean Bloomfield had at last called him Douglas that he had failed to put up a convincing performance.

She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Oh, he was very discreet,' she said lightly. ‘Had-I-by-any-chance-happened-to-see-you-passing …? And in the circumstances, I didn't think you'd want me to deny it. He's called you away, I imagine?'

‘Yes, but he can wait. The chance to stand back and think about a case while someone else does the legwork is one of the perks of being a chief inspector, and I intend to make the most of it. What were you saying about Dale Kenward?'

‘That I'm certain that he wouldn't have killed Mary. He loved her, and he recognised and respected her innocence. That boy deserves to be given a medal for his restraint, not to be questioned about her death.'

‘And you don't think she knew any other—older—men?'

‘Not to my knowledge. If you're thinking of the school staff, I don't believe that any of them knew her socially.' She got up and emptied her cold coffee into the sink. ‘Anyway, why does it have to be someone who knew Mary? Isn't it often a stranger who sees a girl alone and kills her?'

‘Too often—but not in this case, there was too little violence for that,' Quantrill explained. ‘But tell me, would other people—besides Dale Kenward and yourself, I mean—have thought of Mary as a potential victim?'

Jean Bloomfield toyed with her packet of cigarettes, obviously trying to resist the temptation to take another. ‘High-flyers are always vulnerable,' she said slowly. ‘Anyone who teaches knows that. In the nature of things, high-flyers are bound to peak early. Sometimes they go on from university to a brilliant career, and then falter in middle age. Sometimes they're in their element at university, but fail to find a satisfactory career. And sometimes they reach their peak at eighteen. There are always a few who never live up to their early promise when they reach university, for one reason or another: they find the work completely different, they're homesick, they make the wrong friends, they become emotionally disturbed.'

‘And you think that would have happened to Mary Gedge?'

‘I think it was a possibility, particularly in view of her innocence. But I doubt if any of us had consciously formulated the idea of her as a victim—I didn't, until Liz Whilton mentioned Ophelia.'