Framed in Cornwall (17 page)

Rose noticed that beneath the shapeless grey skirt and pink sweater Mrs Heath wore elasticated stockings. Her feet were swollen and a small roll of flesh hung over the sides of her slippers. Rose was unable to put an age to her, she might have been anywhere between early sixties and mid-seventies. This, then, was Marigold’s mother to whom Rose had to break the news. She did not think she could possibly leave without doing so.

‘Sugar?’

‘Sorry? Oh, no thanks, I’ve got sweeteners.’ Rose dug into her bag to get them out, still unsure what to say.

‘It’s nice having a bit of company. I don’t get out much, with my legs, you see. Where did you say you were from? My memory’s not what it was.’

‘Newlyn.’

‘Down Penzance way. That’s a fair old way to come.’ Audrey looked pleased, as if the length of the journey was more important than what her visitor had come to talk about.

Rose knew she had to make a start. ‘Mrs Heath, as I explained, the questions I want to ask are for my own interest only, nothing will go any further without your permission. I’m not from the press, or anything like that.’ She paused, thinking what a mess she was making of it. Perhaps, from the strange way in which she was being observed, Mrs Heath may have been expecting payment or to hear good news. Stalling was useless and she could not continue until the truth came out.

Audrey nodded. ‘Whatever you say can’t hurt me, dear. I’ve got nothing to hide.’ She sipped her tea noisily, the cup held in both hands because her joints were gnarled with arthritis.

‘I don’t know how to put this. There’s no easy way. Mrs Heath, it’s bad news, I’m afraid.’

‘Concerning Marigold.’ The statement was flat. ‘I can’t say it surprises me.’

Audrey’s reaction was nonchalant and therefore unexpected. For a minute Rose thought there might be another Marigold
Heath. She had to make sure before she continued. ‘When did you last see your daughter?’

Audrey squinted through the smoke. ‘Some years ago now. Not since she left home.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘Where she was destined to go. Downhill. Oh, don’t look so upset, that girl was trouble from the minute she was born. By the time she was sixteen she was on the game, nothing I could do to stop her, she never took a blind bit of notice of me. I suppose it’s true what they say, about kids needing a father. Hers was killed when she was small. She used to pick up seamen, did Marigold. There’s enough of them in Plymouth. Sometimes down Union Street, sometimes down the Barbican, but that was before they done it all up. It’s real nice now. Next thing I heard was that she’d taken off for Cornwall. Not even a goodbye. Don’t ask me why, she didn’t know anyone down there. Still, we were never what you could call close, not really. Marigold always kept her distance, even as a little girl.’

Rose swallowed. It felt painful. ‘Mrs Heath –’

‘Oh, Audrey, please.’

‘Audrey, Marigold died last week.’

‘Died?’

‘Yes. I’m so sorry. And I wish there was someone closer to you who could have broken the news.’ Rose half stood, ready to put a comforting arm around her shoulders. It was not necessary.

‘I always said she’d come to a bad end. Someone strangle her, did they? Wouldn’t surprise me, I was tempted to myself many a time.’ She paused and stared at Rose. ‘No. Can’t be that, the police would’ve come round.’

The words were harsh but there was no other way to put it. ‘She was ill. Marigold died of cancer.’

‘Oh!’ Audrey’s face registered a mixture of emotions. Shock and pain and regret but no grief. That would come later. ‘I wouldn’t have wished that on her, no matter what she did.’

‘I went to her funeral. I naturally assumed all the family knew, I can’t think why someone didn’t tell you.’

‘It was very kind of you. Thank you. But I don’t think I’d’ve gone if I had known. We fell out badly and she said she never
wanted to set eyes on me again. I’m glad there was someone like you there to say goodbye.’

‘There were an awful lot of people, over a hundred.’

‘What?’ Audrey’s eyes bulged in disbelief, then she laughed. ‘Maybe all her clients turned up. How was she, I mean did she do all right for herself?’

Rose saw Audrey reach into her pocket for a tissue and make a pretence of blowing her nose. ‘Yes. She did all right. Did she have any brothers or sisters?’

‘No, she was the only one. I couldn’t have coped with two like that.’

Rose was safe to carry on. ‘Marigold had a boyfriend. They were together for some years. They ran a shop and from what I know she was happy enough. She didn’t want for anything and her boyfriend adored her.’

‘Marigold turned respectable? My God. Running a shop, you say? I never thought I’d live to hear such a thing.’ Audrey sighed deeply. ‘I wish she’d let me know, I wish she could’ve just telephoned me. Perhaps she was afraid I’d tell this bloke about her past, but I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have said a word.’

Rose saw that it was a double loss. First her daughter had walked out on her then she had lived the sort of life Audrey would have wished for her.

‘Were there any children?’ She held her breath.

‘No.’ At least she had not missed out on that.

The tears still held at bay, she asked Rose to talk about her, to tell what Marigold was like.

‘I didn’t know her, but I met the man she lived with. He was quiet and, as you said, respectable, a church-goer, a warden, I believe. They had the shop and until Marigold became ill they both worked there. She was well liked by the customers.’

Audrey was shaking her head as if Rose was talking about someone else. ‘She wasn’t a bit like that at home. I tried everything I could think of to keep her on the straight and narrow, but by the time she was fourteen I knew I was wasting my time. Then just before she left the police wanted to see her. Something to do with a man who was stabbed in the street. Three o’clock in the morning, it was. Of course, she wasn’t here, she’d left home ages before
that. Turns out he was her pimp. No great loss to the world to my mind. All the girls were questioned and once they knew he was dead they were more than willing to speak. I don’t condone the way they earned their living but I did feel sorry for them knowing how he treated them. Marigold had been seen with him that night – mind you, she’d been seen with other men too. Not long after that she went away. I heard they were satisfied that she wasn’t involved after some man came forward and said how he’d spent the whole night with her. She didn’t come home, not even then. Later I heard she’d moved to Truro.’

‘Why there?’

‘Beats me. Another city, maybe, although not so big as this one.’ Audrey pushed back a lock of hair. It was grey except at the front where nicotine had stained it yellow. ‘I always wondered if she’d taken up with one of her men, one of the ones that used to come up here to get what they weren’t getting at home, if you see what I mean.’

Coincidence? Rose did not think so. Fred Meecham originally came from Truro but he already had the shop when Marigold moved in with him. She may have said that Truro was where she was heading but it was not where she had ended up.

As for Fred, that was the part which puzzled her. He made such a big thing of acting the perfect citizen and of being deeply religious. Had he really come to Plymouth to visit prostitutes? And could a girl like Marigold have changed so drastically? Or had it been what she had wanted all along, a man and a life of domesticity? They would never know now. ‘What happened in the end, about the man who was stabbed?’

‘Oh, I don’t remember now. You know how it is, big news one minute and the next everyone’s forgotten all about it. I can’t recall hearing they got anyone, but good luck, I say, if it prevented other girls getting beaten up. Here, if this chap was so fond of Marigold, how come they didn’t get married?’

Rose shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’ It was a good question. Both of them were single, perhaps Marigold did not want it. But why pose as brother and sister? Surely even someone like Fred would not be embarrassed in this day and age. There might have been gossip to begin with but, as Audrey had said, things soon blow
over. Rose was certain there was an explanation which had nothing to do with the conventions.

They talked for a little while longer then Rose said she must leave. She felt she knew a great deal more about Marigold Heath now than she did about Fred Meecham. Audrey tried to persuade her to stay to lunch but Rose refused. She held out her hand. ‘Thank you for seeing me, and I really am sorry.’

Audrey clutched her hand in both her own. ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for, dear. It’s me that should thank you for coming. And it’s easier now I know she found a man to care for her.’ Audrey shut the door but Rose saw that as she did so she was pulling the tissue from the sleeve of her jumper.

There was a bus-stop at the end of the road. Rose had given no thought as to how she was to get back to the city centre and there was no telephone box in sight from which to ring for a taxi. As she was deciding on the best course of action a young woman with a push-chair arrived at the stop. Rose asked her how to get back into the centre of Plymouth.

‘There’s a bus in a couple of minutes, it’ll drop you in Royal Parade.’

Rose thanked her and smiled at the toddler who was smacking at the plastic hood protecting him from the wind. They were high up and Rose could see the gantries of the huge cranes in the dockyard. When the bus arrived she carried the push-chair on to it, leaving the mother’s hands free to cope with the child and to pay for her fare.

Alighting in the city centre Rose crossed at the lights and studied the posters displayed inside the plate glass windows of the Theatre Royal. If she had thought about it in advance she could have booked a matinée seat but that wouldn’t have left any time to buy herself something to wear. With her new-found freedom there were many things she could do.

Strolling through the pannier market she eyed the colourful stacks of fruit and vegetables, noted the cheapness of the meat and fingered the swinging bundles of pungent leather handbags. The mixture of aromas was almost exotic but over all was the warm, meaty smell of pasties, Devon pasties, with the crimped crust running along the top instead of around the edge.

Leaving the market she walked up New George Street towards the main shopping area. The wind off the sea, stronger now, gusted up Armada Way. In a department store she bought three sets of matching underwear but did not see a dress or suit she wanted.

Rose liked the spaciousness of the city, rebuilt after the heavy bombing of the war with its added attractions of the Hoe overlooking Plymouth Sound and the Barbican, steeped in history with its cobbled streets and eating places and art galleries and where she and David had once done the tour of the gin distillery. It was housed in a building which had been a monastery and a prison amongst other things. It was after three and she had almost given up. In desperation she went into a boutique from whose doors throbbed rock music. And there she found exactly what she was looking for; bright, flamboyant clothes, items which reminded her of her youth. But it was not her adolescence she was trying to recapture, it was the freedom of spirit she had once possessed. As she came out of the changing room a flowered dress caught her eye. She tried it on and bought that too. Her purchases wrapped and paid for, she left the shop.

With a smile of satisfaction she walked the last couple of hundred yards back to the station and was just in time to catch the London train, Inter-City.

It was dark when she arrived back in Penzance and there were damp patches on the pavement where a passing shower had occurred in her absence. Although she had walked a fair distance in Plymouth she needed to stretch her legs after the two-hour journey. As always, each time she returned she felt as though she had been away longer and it was a pleasure to fill her lungs with the fresh salty air.

She walked briskly, carrier bags swinging as she looked forward to a drink and a meal. She had not eaten anything since breakfast.

It had been an odd but enjoyable day. Rose was thinking about what Mrs Heath had told her but nagging at the back of her mind were Jobber’s words, about Gwen Pengelly having been seen at Dorothy’s place on the day of her death. Gwen was aware of her involvement with the family and must surely have been
suspicious of her reasons for calling on her and Peter. That’s it, she thought, remembering the details of the neat kitchen and the immaculate appearance of her hostess. Beside the kettle had been a brown plastic container of pills. Tranquillisers? Rose wondered. Gwen had struck her as the type of woman to resort to them. And if so? No, Jack would have made inquiries. It was not up to her to speak to the woman. Wrapped in thought she had not seen just ahead of her, leaning on the railings, a man whose profile, even outlined against the darkness, she recognised. Smoke trailed from a cigarette as he tapped ash over the sea wall. It was Jack. She was about to cross the road when he turned his head and saw her. It was too late to avoid him and it would have been childish to pretend she had not seen him. She carried on walking, more slowly now.

‘Rose?’

‘Hello, Jack.’

They stood looking at each other. ‘Are you on your way home?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was just taking a walk. Rose, I’ve been out of my mind since I saw you. I wanted to ring you. Every minute I’ve wanted to but I told myself it was no good, you wouldn’t speak to me. I owe you an apology, I was very rude. Are you still angry?’

‘No, Jack, not angry. Disappointed, though, because I’d hoped you’d understand. Believe me, it wasn’t your fault.’

He threw the end of the cigarette to the ground and stepped on it. ‘I’d like to remain friends. I’ve had time to think about it and I promise you there’ll be no pressure.’

She was ashamed to acknowledge a new disappointment. Jack Pearce seemed to have got over her very quickly. ‘Good. I must get home, I’ve had a long day.’ She swung the carriers. ‘I’ve been up to Plymouth.’ It would mean nothing to Jack. Marigold’s death was not the one he was investigating but she felt a mean streak of smugness that she knew things of which he was completely unaware. Her white plastic bags glistened under the street-lights as she began to move away.