Mrs. Malory and Any Man's Death (8 page)

“Has she anything else you could use?”

“I don’t know, but I got the impression that there were other things, but, being Annie, she was going to disclose them one by one.”

“You’re going to need more than that,” Rosemary said.

“I know; that’s why I need Annie to badger people, not that there are many proper village people still around. Annie’s going to write to some of them who’ve moved away—they might have stuff that would be useful. So you see why I need her back in the village!”

“I wonder what’s wrong with her?” Rosemary said.

“The general impression is that it’s some sort of food poisoning, but, of course, they wouldn’t tell Rachel anything because she isn’t a relative.”

“That’s maddening, especially as Annie doesn’t seem to
have
any relatives.”

 

It was quite late that evening when Rachel rang again. I’d fallen asleep in my chair in front of the television (something I’m increasingly prone to do) and was in that confused state that you are when jerked suddenly into consciousness by the telephone.

“I’m afraid she’s gone,” Rachel said.

“Gone?” I echoed stupidly. “Gone where?”

“It’s Annie. She died this afternoon. Lewis has just called me.”

“Good heavens!” I was wide-awake now. “How awful.”

“I think it was pretty inevitable, from what Lewis said.”

“What was it?”

“An acute form of food poisoning. The effects lasted a few days and led to renal failure.”

“Renal failure? That’s kidneys, isn’t it?”

“That was the problem. In the normal course of events it need not necessarily have proved fatal, but unfortunately it appears that Annie only had one kidney, so . . . well . . . that was that.”

There was a moment’s silence while I tried to take in what Rachel had been telling me.

“What sort of food poisoning?” I asked.

“We’ll know more after the postmortem.”

“A postmortem—oh dear!”

“Well,” Rachel said patiently, “they have to establish the exact cause of death and there’ll have to be an inquest, of course.”

“Yes, I suppose so. It just sounds so horrible.”

“It was a dreadful thing to have happened, but they do have to get to the bottom of it. Anyway, I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible, because of the Book and everything.”

“Oh yes, of course—the Book. Well, thanks so much for letting me know . . .”

“I’d better get on; I need to tell other people in the village and I must see if I can get in touch with Father William. Perhaps we could have lunch sometime soon. Ask Rosemary.”

There was the click on the phone and she was gone.

I thought of phoning Rosemary straightaway, but when I looked at the clock I saw it was quite late. So I took my confused and gloomy thoughts with me out into the kitchen and, while I was putting out the animals’ supper and laying my tray, I wondered what effect Annie’s death would have on the village and, indeed, what effect it would have on me.

 

“Oh dear, how dreadful,” Rosemary said, “and what rotten luck about her only having one kidney. Did you know?”

“No, I don’t think anyone did. You know how Annie never talked about herself. I mean, she talked all the time about what she’d done and what she thought about everything—especially that!—but never any really personal details. Like why she’d never married, or, indeed, if she had any relatives—things like that.”

“Now you come to mention it, she didn’t, did she? We were all so occupied in seeing how involved she was in other people’s lives that we never noticed things like that about her.”

“I mean, we know she was the local midwife for years,” I said, “but I haven’t the faintest idea where she trained or where, if anywhere, she worked before she came back here.”

“So need you go on with the Book now that Annie’s not there to chivvy you?” Rosemary asked.

“That was one of the first things that occurred to me,” I admitted. “Though I felt a bit guilty thinking it.”

“I don’t see why. You didn’t want to do the thing in the first place and I don’t expect there’s anyone else in the village who cares about it either way.”

“I don’t expect there is.”

But apparently we were wrong. Just after I’d spoken to Rosemary, Father William telephoned.

“Ah, Sheila, I gather Rachel has told you the sad news?” His voice, I noticed, was in clerical mode, soft and muted. “We are all very shocked and saddened by poor Annie’s passing.”

“Yes, it’s dreadful, isn’t it. Is there any news about when the funeral is to be?”

“No, alas, we have to wait for the postmortem and then, perhaps, for the inquest—it depends on what the findings will be—before any decision can be made.”

“Oh dear.”

“I have made myself responsible for the arrangements, since there do not seem to be any relations. And because of that, there will, of course, be a lot to do.” The tone was now brisker with just a slight undertone of importance. “But I have been thinking about what
kind
of service she would have wished for, so I am asking all her friends to get in touch with me if they have any suggestions.”

“Well,” I said hesitantly, “I have no idea what Annie thought about such things. I really didn’t know her that well.”

“But you have been working with her on that splendid book, which will, in some ways, be her memorial!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Something she cared about so much!”

“I don’t know if I
can
go on with it. There were a lot of things Annie was going to do.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way—you’re so resourceful—and it’s the last tribute the village can pay to her.”

There was much more in a similar vein, and when he’d finally rung off I slammed around the kitchen in a temper.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous and I don’t see why I should be lumbered with it!” I said to Tris, who looked at me with his head on one side, worried by my cross voice. “All that tiresome work—and I don’t even
live
in the wretched village!” I said to Foss, sitting impassively on top of the microwave. “Even when she’s dead, Annie Roberts is forcing me to do things I don’t want to do. It isn’t fair!”

Foss gave me a contemptuous stare, jumped down and stalked off into the hall where I could hear him sharpening his claws on the stair carpet.

 

 

 

I got out the photocopies I’d made of Annie’s letters, because I still didn’t like to work from the originals, and began to look through them. I’ve read quite a few letters written home by soldiers (including those from my father when he was a chaplain in Italy during the last war) and I’m always struck by the fact that, almost always, even in the most horrible places and at times of great stress and danger, the language is so matter of fact. I suppose it’s an instinctive shying away from heroics.

Frank Roberts’s letters were like that. Written from a position just outside Ypres, the commonplace words (designed to keep from his family any knowledge of the appalling conditions around him) were very touching. Now that we’ve all seen on television pictures of the unspeakable horror of mud and devastation, the words “a bit wet and miserable” and “not exactly a home from home” were immensely moving. As were the references to the children, about how much they’d have grown, so that he wouldn’t recognize them when he got back.

Fortunately Frank Roberts did go back and took up his old job as village carpenter, just as if he’d never been away. And I believe he never referred to those years, except to make the odd joke with a fellow ex-soldier, down at the Legion, about lorries that should have brought ammunition being full of plum and apple jam, and to say, on occasion, that he didn’t think much of foreign parts. I would have liked to ask Annie what memories she had of her grandfather—he seems to have been a mild and kindly man who would have been fond of his grandchild—but now it was too late. I would just have to imagine it. Though it was hard, almost impossible, to imagine Annie as a child.

On an impulse, I put the letters away, got out the car and went to Mere Barton. Having no plan in mind I went into the shop, the most likely place to glean what information there was about Annie. Maurice was behind the counter, deep in conversation with Judith. He looked up as I came in.

“Sheila might be able to help,” he said. “Her son is—was—Annie’s solicitor.” He turned to me. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes, he is,” I said, “but I don’t know . . .”

“It’s so awkward,” Judith said. “I really don’t know what to do—it’s the keys, you see. Now that poor Annie’s gone, who should I give them to? I mean, I’m quite happy to hang on to them for the time being, but I wouldn’t want to do the wrong thing—legally, that is. What
is
the situation? I don’t know of any relatives, do you? And what’s to become of all her things? She had some very nice pieces—that dresser in the kitchen (it’s a really old Welsh dresser, you know, and they’re fetching a good price at auction. I saw one on television the other day) and that bookcase in the sitting room—lots of things. What’s to become of those?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to Michael since Annie died—he and the family are away for a few days—but I’m sure if you rang the practice, they’d advise you—”

“It’s the responsibility,” Judith went on. “As I said, I’d be happy to hang on to the keys, but I would like to know . . . well, what’s going to happen.”

“Do we know what the result of the postmortem is,” I asked, “and if there’s got to be an inquest? If there is, I suppose the police would have to be involved.”

“No, we haven’t heard,” Maurice said. “We’re waiting for Lewis—I don’t suppose they’d tell us, would they?”

“I’d be happy to give them to the police,” Judith said, “if that’s what they want. I had been going to go in there to water the plants, but now—well, I don’t think . . . I mean, she had some really nice potted plants, and it would be a shame just to let them die. But I don’t like to actually go
in,
not with Annie—you know . . .”

“It is awkward,” I said. “I have those letters of hers—her grandfather’s, that is. She gave them to me for the Book, but now . . .”

“Oh, you’ll go on with the Book,” Judith exclaimed. “It’s what she would have wanted. Don’t you think so, Maurice? Oh, you must go on!”

“It’s really a question of who the letters belong to now,” I said, “and, if I do go on with it, Annie said there are other things she had that ought to go in as well. I really don’t know what to do about them.”

“It seems to me,” Maurice said, “that there’s not much that we can do until we know what’s in the will—I suppose she did make a will?” He looked at me inquiringly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose she must have done, though often people don’t.”

“There’s the cottage,” Maurice said thoughtfully. “That was Annie’s. I mean, it belonged to her mother and she left it to her. Her father was in the army, killed in the war, in North Africa I think it was, though Annie never talked about it. So there was a widow’s pension and her mother used to work at the hotel and, then, Annie was earning. I never knew the mother, of course; she died before we came here. Anyhow, as I was saying, there’s the cottage. That must be worth quite a bit—properties in the village are fetching ridiculous amounts. I was just saying to Margaret the other day, it’s lucky we bought this place when we did; we certainly couldn’t have afforded it now!”

“Of course,” Judith said, “Mere Barton is a very desirable village—do you know I heard that Pitlands Farm sold for the best part of a million—and there isn’t any land now, just the house!”

“So who gets Annie’s cottage, then?” Maurice said. “If there are no relatives—and what if she didn’t make a will? Does the government get it?”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be fair,” Judith said indignantly, “coming and taking people’s
property
like that. They couldn’t, could they?”

They both looked at me as if being the mother of a solicitor gave me some sort of legal competence.

I shook my head. “I really don’t know . . . ,” I began, when the door opened and Lewis came in.

We all turned to him eagerly and Maurice said, “Now, here’s somebody who can tell us what’s what.”

“Have they had the result of the postmortem?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes. It’s as we thought—food poisoning.”

“Do they know what caused it?” Maurice asked quickly, anxious, no doubt, for the reputation of the shop.

“It seems to have been some sort of fungus,” Lewis said.

“Oh well!” Maurice said, visibly relieved. “We might have known it! All those toadstools and stuff she used to gather in the woods—”

“I was
always
nervous about her eating them,” Judith broke in. “Time and again I said to her, ‘Annie, are you sure they’re safe?’ but she never listened to me. Once, she gave me some in a bag, told me to fry them just like proper mushrooms. Well, I thanked her, of course, but when I got home I threw them away, and when she asked me I said they were delicious!”

“It’s strange, though,” I said. “Annie was very knowledgeable about such things; how did she come to make such a terrible mistake?”

“Oh, that kitchen of hers,” Judith said, “very dark, with that tiny window, and she never had the light on in the daytime. Too careful of the electricity, I suppose.”

“Well,” Maurice said, “if she’d been more careful over what she was cooking, this would never have happened!”

“But still . . . ,” I said.

“And her eyesight wasn’t too good,” Judith said. “Half the time she never wore her glasses—and now you see what that led to.”

I turned to Lewis. “I suppose there’ll have to be an inquest?”

“Yes. I saw Inspector Morris at the hospital. He’ll be coming to look round the house. I told him that the cottage was safely locked up and that you, Judith, had the keys, so he’ll be calling on you soon.”