Sins Out of School (20 page)

I studied Miriam's face, but I saw no fear, indeed no interest. Her mind was apparently still on the possibility of a dog. Amanda's face, too, was blank, but it was too late to catch her first reaction. I'd been too busy rescuing the precious bit of evidence to watch her.

At this stage, Gillian was the one to watch out for. She persisted. “Mandy, it has John's name on it. You told me once he never took drugs, didn't approve of them.”

“What is it, cold medicine or something?” Amanda didn't sound very interested, but again she held out her hand.

I kept the vial and pretended to study the label. “‘Lanoxin,' it says. Anybody know what that is?”

“It's digitalis,” said Gillian in that dry voice of hers. “It's for heart trouble. Did John have heart trouble, Mandy?”

“And exactly how do you think I would know that? He never told me anything, but I've never seen him take mediine of any kind. He didn't approve of medicine.”

“Or anything else,” muttered Gillian.

“Oh, for heaven's sake take the bottle, Dorothy, and welcome to it. Gillian, you must be longing for some tea. I know, I'll make scones. Would you like that, darling, just as a little treat?”

Miriam grinned. “We can have treats now, can't we, Mummy? Will you teach me to make scones? Do you think a puppy would like scones?”

If there was guilt behind the facade of either mother or daughter, Miriam was the best child actress since Shirley Temple, and Amanda wasn't far behind. I gave up on the psychology of the thing and decided to be content with the physical evidence. It might not be much, but it was something. There was only a slim chance of fingerprints, but the real point was that, once the police had their hands on the vial, they'd be in a much better position to trace who put it there. Of course, they'd be around to question everyone, and at that point I was going to be as popular in Amanda's household as a skunk at a picnic.

Should I stay and try to make a little more hay in the brief period of sunshine left to me? Or should I get out while the getting was good?

Discretion is the better part of valor. I couldn't remember who'd said that, but it seemed at the moment to be the epitome of wisdom. “Well,” I said brightly, dropping the pill bottle into my coat pocket, “you don't need me to carry on the puppy discussion. I'm more of a cat person, though I do think puppies are sweet. I'll just—”

“Just a moment.” Gillian's voice was as cold and sharp as chilled steel. “I think I'll have that bit of rubbish back, if you don't mind.”

“Gill!” Amanda sounded shocked. “There's nothing in it, you said so. You surely don't think Dorothy's stealing something, do you?”

Gillian moved so that she could look me full in the face, and paid no attention to Amanda. “Exactly what did John die of, Dorothy?”

“Gill, I really can't have this! Miriam, darling, put your coat away and wash your hands and face, and then come back and we'll make scones.”

Miriam, all the animation wiped from her face as though by a sponge, moved away silently.

“I'd have thought you'd have better sense!” said Amanda, her voice low but full of anger. “Talking about it in front of—”

“Well?” said Gillian, interrupting. “Is someone going to tell me? And are you going to give that vial back to me?”

“He was stabbed,” said Amanda in fury. “I had to come down in the morning, half awake, and find my husband lying on the kitchen floor with a knife in his back. I didn't tell you because the thought still makes me sick and I don't want to talk about it. Now are you happy?”

“And was that what killed him?” Gillian was still talking to me, and her voice never wavered.

“No.” I was tired of it, suddenly. “No, it wasn't. I'm sorry, Amanda. I didn't tell you, because I wasn't sure I should, but your husband was already dead when he was stabbed. He died of an overdose of digitalis, probably from the vial I have in my pocket. And no, I'm not going to give it back to you, Gillian. I'm going to give it to the police. They may be able to trace the murderer with it. And before you go into a screaming tantrum, either of you, let me remind you that I do
not
believe either you, Amanda, or your daughter had anything to do with the murder.”

“I notice you left me off your little list.” Gillian stood between me and the doorway of the room.

“Yes, I did, didn't I? Excuse me.”

She stood still for a moment, and then moved aside and let me pass.

I made for the back door in case any reporters had come back. Miriam was in the kitchen, looking like a pale little ghost.

“Oh, sweetheart, it'll be all right! Really, it will. You see if you can't talk your mother into that puppy. It would do you both a world of good.”

She said nothing, and after a moment's indecision, I let myself out and trudged to my car.

I went straight to the police station with my story and my bottle. Derek wasn't there, so I had to talk to one of the lower orders, an impassive woman who didn't know me. She wasn't impressed.

“Thank you, Mrs. Martin,” she said in a bored tone when I had finished talking and had handed over the little brown vial. “I'm sure we're grateful for your trouble, though of course you know it would have been better to leave this where you found it.”

“I didn't find it. I just told you. Ms. Blake found it, and if I'd left it with her, she would either have thrown it away or covered it with her own fingerprints, or both.”

“Yes, I'm sure you did what you thought was best.”

She sounded soothing and complacent, as if she'd been to nanny school and was practicing her lesson on a difficult toddler. I was nettled. “You will tell Chief Inspector Morrison the minute he gets in? It's important that he send someone to talk to the family right away, because—”

“I will deal with it, rest assured, Mrs. Martin.”

With that I had to be satisfied, if not content. There is a certain level of English officialdom, in no matter what business or agency, that delights in condescension. It was the same in America, of course, or had been when I'd lived there. In America, though, the rudeness wasn't disguised as courtesy. “Okay, okay, lady,” would have been the response from a bored cop in my hometown.

I thought it might have been easier to take. You can get mad at people when they're overtly rude.

I went home and told Alan all about it. “And I'll bet I'd have been treated better if you were still in charge!”

“Well, yes. You'd have been the wife of the boss, wouldn't you?”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean, but I'm afraid the supercilious, like the poor, we have always with us. They usually either learn better or leave the force, though I've known a few senior officers …” He shook his head.

“Well, it's infuriating. That miserable little piece of plastic cost me all the headway I'd made with Amanda. The police might at least have acted grateful.”

“I'm sure Derek will be ecstatic when he finds out about it.”

“If he finds out about it.”

“Oh, he will. The woman you talked to—sergeant?”

“Just a constable, I think.”

“In any case, she'd know better than to make a mistake in a major investigation. She'll see he gets the report, however much she might resent being told what to do by the wife of a retired CC.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose that was part of it. She'd know who I am, you think?”

“Yes, my dear.
Gloria mundi
may
transit
, but not quite that quickly, not in a small town. Yes, everyone on the police is quite aware that you are my wife.”

“She didn't act as if she knew.”

“Of course not. She would have had to act deferential, and it didn't suit her. Now, what are you going to do while you wait for Derek to call and heap laurels on your head?”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “I don't quite know. I had planned to ask Amanda if she had any idea, herself, who might have murdered her husband. Yes, I know the police will have asked her, but she might open up more to me. Might have before all this, I mean. Now—I think I'm at a loose end.”

“In that case, why don't we pop 'round to the hospital?”

“The hospital? What for? You're not feeling—oh! The baby?”

“The baby. A little boy, Nigel Peter. Mother and child doing splendidly. Born late last night, but no one got around to telling us till this afternoon.”

“Oh, that's exactly what I need to take my mind off everything else! Yes, let's go. Right away, before visiting hours are over for the day.”

There was a time in my life when I, an achingly childless woman, found it hard to visit a maternity ward. All those babies, when I had none. Fortunately, I'd eventually outgrown the oversensitivity. We stopped to buy flowers and thoroughly enjoyed seeing Inga (weary but beautiful), Nigel (haggard, with a bristly five o'clock shadow, but bursting with pride), and small Nigel Peter (red of face, black of hair, and roaring lustily).

We didn't stay long. Everyone concerned needed rest, and so did I. Though I absolutely hate admitting it, I'm not as young as I once was, and both physical and emotional exertion tire me more than they used to. I wanted to go home, thaw out something for supper, and put my feet up while I considered what role, if any, I could continue to play in the Doyle drama.

The phone rang when I was staring into the freezer, searching for inspiration. Alan answered it in his study and came padding slipper shod into the kitchen a couple of minutes later.

“You were right, love. Derek got your message, but not until he'd been back at the station for some time. He was livid about the delay, by the way. I think that young woman will have her ears pinned back. Anyway, he decided to go to the Doyle house himself, because he was quite certain that there had been no medicine vial in the rubbish bin, or anywhere else, when the house was first searched. And he was too late. The birds have flown.”

N
O
one was there?” I said stupidly.

“They were not only not there, but they left behind every indication of urgent flight. They forgot even to lock the door, so Derek had a bit of a look 'round. Drawers not quite pushed in, that sort of thing. The wardrobes are all half empty, the toothbrushes are gone, and so is Gillian's car. They've decamped.”

I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. Alan closed the freezer door and sat, too.

“They've gone to London,” I said finally. “Gillian's taken them both. Drat the woman! She doesn't trust me and she doesn't trust the police, but you'd think she'd be smart enough to see that the innocent are better off sitting tight.”

“Or the guilty, if it comes to that. No, don't glare at me. I've no desire to find either of the Doyles guilty of murder, though I'm keeping a more open mind about it than you are. But I doubt they've gone to Gillian's flat.”

“Too obvious? I suppose. Where, then? Surely not home to Daddy.”

“It's not impossible, though I admit it's unlikely. One can imagine the sort of welcome they'd get. No, I would imagine it's London or Birmingham. Perhaps Manchester, though that's rather far afield.”

“Not for Gillian, not the way she drives. A big city where they can get lost, then?”

“It's where people usually go when they're trying to run away. Unless they skip the country altogether. But that takes a little money, especially with three people, and apparently there isn't much money to spare in this case.”

“Mmm. Daddy might have been willing to spring for some airfares, though, to get his troublesome family even farther out of the way. I suppose Derek will have notified the ports.”

“Routine, my dear. Not that it does much good these days, when anyone can hop aboard a Chunnel train and be in France before you can look up the schedule.”

“The
idiots!
When they could perfectly well have sat it out here. It'll work itself out in time, I know it will. Things always do.”

Alan said nothing with such heavy emphasis that I sighed. “All right, all right. Not always. And if they really did do it, one or all of them, I suppose they were sensible to try and get away. But I don't believe for a moment that they're murderers—though I could cheerfully murder Gillian myself right now—and I intend to find out who
is
responsible.”

It was Alan's turn to sigh and pick up the telephone as he rummaged through our take-out menus. “Indian or Chinese?”

I thawed out some meat loaf instead, and after supper sat in front of the parlor fire and did some serious thinking. I would have liked to go charging off in all directions, but I was truly too tired, and it wouldn't have done me any more good than it did Don Quixote.

No, it was time to make some lists. I make lists for everything. “Shopping,” “Things to Remember” (that one gets longer and more vital with every passing year), “Things to Do.”