The House of Women (15 page)

5

Briefly released from drudgery, Dewi gunned the engine of his new car, sending plumes of smoke pulsing from the twin exhausts. Sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, bare arm resting on the door, he roared out from the yard behind the police station, turning heads as he cruised past the swimming baths and towards the pier. More heads swivelled when he parked, motor idling, to spend a few minutes watching yachts tacking down the Strait from Beaumaris to Menai Bridge, sails tautened by an off shore breeze. The sun, drifting towards the west, was searingly hot, the people who watched him in his gleaming car wilting in the heat. He reversed slowly out of the parking lot, then drove up the hill towards Siliwen Road, plunging into a green darkness of overhanging trees before emerging again into hot white light. At the end of the road, he made a sharp left turn into Holyhead Road, then into Glamorgan Place.

She was at the door before he reached the step, face shadowed by the wonderful hair.

‘Are you really called Minerva?’ he asked.

She nodded, gazing over his shoulder.
‘Is that your car?’

‘Why? Would you like a ride in it?’

She had no smile for him today.
‘I just wondered.’ Turning on her heel, she left him standing on the doorstep.

Nonplussed, he waited, then walked into the hall, and knocked tentatively at the sitting room door.

‘There’s nobody there.’ Mina spoke from the rear of the hall. She was like a ghost, or a cat, appearing and disappearing without respect for the rules of solid matter. ‘Annie’s taken Mama and Phoebe and Bethan for a drive.’

‘
I’m supposed to meet my boss here,’ Dewi said. ‘And George Polgreen.’

‘
Oh, they’re upstairs. You can go up.’

Long legs elegantly crossed, skin gleaming like the paint on Dewi
’s car, George lounged in a battered leather armchair beside the desk, while the chair which had cradled Ned in death stood vacant in the far corner, already gathering dust.

McKenna sat on the dusty window-ledge, smoke from his cigarette drifting through the open window.
‘It took me about four minutes to get here,’ he commented, ‘and I left after you. I suppose you went detouring in your tart-trap.’ As Dewi reddened under his tan, McKenna added: ‘Not that I blame you, but now you’ve arrived, you can pitch in with George, while I have another look over Ned’s clothes and whatever.’ He regarded the stacks of books and mounds of paper with dismay. ‘Although we’re probably wasting our time.’

‘
What was he doing with this lot?’ Dewi hefted a pile of books on to the desk.

‘
Research.’ George said, clearing a space. ‘He’d spent the last twenty odd years analysing the influence of Welsh culture on European culture from the eighth century onwards. When we last discussed it, he’d got as far as 1750, and before you ask, a great many people all over the world would be very interested in what he was doing, so I was wondering,’ he added, looking at McKenna, ‘whether you could find out from the family if they’ll let me finish his work.’

‘
Well, there’s another motive,’ Dewi opened the first book on the pile, its pages brittle and fragile, and began to read a copperplate inscription on the flyleaf. ‘Mr McKenna killed him out of pique because he lost the Eisteddfod trophy, and you did it from greed because you wanted to steal his scholarship.’

‘
Are you serious?’ George said. ‘I should learn to keep my mouth shut in front of coppers, shouldn’t I?’

‘
Why don’t you both shut up?’ McKenna asked equably, taking one of the brass-bound caskets from its shelf.

‘
They’re not supposed to be opened, sir,’ warned Dewi.

Shaking the box and hearing nothing, McKenna said:
‘They must come undone somehow.’

‘
I don’t think so.’ George looked up. ‘You can see where the brass straps were welded together, or whatever you do with brass.’

McKenna shook the other casket, again in vain, replaced both on the shelf, then took hold of the huge shell beside them and put it to his ear. Smiling, he crossed the room, held the shell to Dewi
’s ear, then to George’s. ‘It’s true you can hear the sea, isn’t it?’ He touched the casket lids. ‘I’d have thought dreams and clouds would have their music, too.’ He went towards the door in the far wall, and up the remains of a servants’ staircase to the bedroom.

Ned had slept in a high bed with carved head- and foot-boards, his head on plump feather pillows covered with white embroidered linen, his body under an old quilt sewn from patches of pretty silks and cottons. From his bed, he would have looked through the leaded casement window over tree-tops and the jumble of gables and roofs, towards a glimmer of sea in the distance.

A tall wardrobe to match the bed stood in shadow in the far corner, a companion chest under the window, its top filmed with dust. A tortoiseshell tray, leached of its rich colours by years of sunshine, held old silver cuff-links, a comb with a few strands of grey hair caught in the teeth, and a brush, backed with the same cloudy tortoiseshell, snarled with more strands of the same hair.

As McKenna opened the top drawer in the chest, scents of clean linen and old wood drifted up from a pile of neatly folded shirts, their cuffs and collars beginning to fray, the white cotton a little starchy and spotlessly clean. The next drawer housed three pairs of striped winceyette pyjamas with corded waists, and three pairs in paisley-patterned cotton for the warmer months, all meticulously clean and folded. In the bottom drawer were stacks of creamy interlock
underpants, cut the old-fashioned way, a pile of dark grey woollen socks, all paired, two worn leather belts, and two pairs of elastic braces.

Ned
’s winter dressing gown hung on the back of the door, his few suits in the wardrobe, with his shoes, slippers, and one pair of walking boots in a tidy row under the window. In the wardrobe drawer, McKenna found the knitted waistcoats Edith had described, together with some well-worn jumpers, their elbows meticulously darned. Within reach of the bed was an ancient record player, housed in a walnut cabinet with its door slightly ajar, and, seating himself on a rush-seated oak chair, McKenna began to examine Ned’s store of records.

Of Paul Robeson he knew, and John McCormack
’s plaintive tenor had never failed to bring tears to his mother’s eyes, he recalled, reading the labels on the shiny black 78s, but Hubert Eisdell was unknown, as were some of the other artistes. The records were probably valuable, he thought, taking care not to rip the brown paper sleeves as he put them one by one on the floor, and even the newer vinyl LPs in plasticized wrappers would interest a collector. He tried to imagine the old man sitting in his bed, perhaps with one of his many books in his hands, perhaps just listening to his music, dreaming his dreams and remembering his memories, and was touched again by the sense of loss, of something gone from his own life before he realized its worth.

From the other room, he could hear the rustle of paper, the clump of book placed upon book, the low murmur of voices. He put the records back in the cabinet, closed the door and watched it move open again, then went through a low arched doorway into the bathroom, stooping to avoid the lintel.

He leaned against the half-tiled walls, looking at the white washbasin, the white lavatory with its wooden seat, the deep white cast-iron bath, and wondered why he had come here again, and what he hoped to find that the previous day’s search had failed to unearth. Back in the bedroom, he knelt down to look under the bed, and dragged out a battered pigskin suitcase, almost holding his breath as he unfastened the worn straps, but apart from a lining of pale watered silk, faintly scented with old lavender, it was empty. He rose, brushing bits of fluff from his knees, and, glancing through the window to the back garden, saw a big marmalade cat sloping towards the gate in the wall, tail low to the ground.

6

Telephone receiver in one hand, McKenna pulled a cigarette from the packet with the other, and flicked his lighter. ‘How long will the urine tests take?’

‘
Not long, as we know what we’re looking for,’ the pathologist said. ‘You should find out who eats and drinks what in the Harris household, in case some of the tests are negative.’

‘
Why? He was poisoned by his lunch.’

‘
And whoever spiked his food probably refrained from eating the same.’

McKenna watched a smoke ring form itself above his head, then disperse.
‘I’m going to Meirionydd to see his family later this week. Can I give them a time scale for release of the body?’

‘
Not until we have a date for the inquest.’

‘
Fine.’ He tapped ash from the cigarette. ‘Could you do me a favour?’

The other man sighed.
‘Eifion said he never gets a minute’s peace when you’ve got a mysteriously dead body. What d’you want?’

‘
Could you use your computer to take a short cut? I want to know if anyone with access to the house was prescribed tetracycline, say within the last three years.’

7

Shortly after four o’clock, Mina knocked on the door of Ned’s room with a tray of tea and sandwiches. Silently, she cleared a space on the desk, put down the tray, and disappeared.

‘
I reckon you’d give a year’s pay for a ride with her in your new car,’ George said, biting into a sandwich.

‘
So?’

‘
So, be warned. She’s a prick-tease, for one thing, and a headcase for another, and if Clyde sees you making eyes at her, he’ll give you a hiding, because she belongs to him, and he’s another headcase.’

‘
How d’you know?’ Dewi asked.

‘
He threatened me not long ago because she said I’d been making eyes at her, then got very nasty when I said I wouldn’t touch her with a barge-pole, and wanted to know what was wrong with her.’

‘
Have you got a girlfriend?’

George grinned.
‘I’m thinking of advertising in the lonely hearts columns. What about you?’

‘
There’s no-one at the moment,’ Dewi admitted.

‘
There will be, before long, with that car.’

‘
Have you got a car?’

‘
Yes, but it’s more often off the road than on. It needs a new engine.’

‘
Geraint’ll fix you up, and he won’t charge much if you say I sent you,’ Dewi said. ‘I’ll give you his number.’ He put his teacup in the saucer and opened a box file of loose papers. ‘We haven’t got very far, have we? Mr McKenna’s hoping we’ll somehow strike gold.’

‘
Ned was very secretive. I knew some things about him, Phoebe and Annie knew others, but nobody knew the whole man.’

‘
So are we wasting our time?’

George shrugged.
‘McKenna asked me about the Box of Lies, but I’d never seen inside it. He said you’ve got five boxes all the same, all filled with stuff about Williams.’

‘
Press cuttings, book reviews, odds and sods like that.’

‘
Nothing personal or confidential, like letters?’

Refilling his teacup, Dewi said:
‘I’ve not seen any letters apart from one from the Benefits Agency, threatening to suspend his incapacity benefit because of new eligibility rules, a couple from the Inland Revenue about taxing his pension, and a few old ones from his solicitor about family matters.’

‘
That’s odd. He corresponded with a lot of people abroad about his research, and those letters aren’t here. He wrote to the family, as well, and I know they wrote back quite often, because he’d read out bits of news and gossip.’

‘
Where else could they be? Could someone have them for safe-keeping?’

‘
His solicitor in Bala, perhaps?’

‘
I spoke to him yesterday, and all he’s got is a copy of the father’s will. I’d better check with him again.’ Retying the string around a stack of papers, Dewi put it aside, and reached for another. ‘Who was Ned writing to abroad?’

‘
Celtic scholars, historians, linguists, musicologists; loads of people. Look in his address book: it’s huge.’

‘
I haven’t found an address book, huge or otherwise.’

8

Diana Bradshaw paced McKenna
’s office, executing neat turns, the soles of her elegant shoes sliding on the carpet. During the course of the day, she had put make up on her face. ‘You only have this Polgreen’s word for it. No-one else has mentioned letters, or an address book, so it’s rather precipitate to question Edith Harris under caution.’

‘
She admitted tampering with the body,’ McKenna pointed out. ‘She conceded this morning that she feared her daughter had killed Ned, and she’s extremely overwrought.’

‘
Anyone
would be overwrought with what she’s going through!’ She sat down, rather suddenly, and stifled a yawn. ‘And I don’t want to be responsible for a complete breakdown because we put her under too much stress.’

‘
People have accused Ned of retreating into illness. Edith could be doing exactly the same.’

‘
Perhaps the letters and address book were removed after Janet attended the scene on Friday.’

‘
Uniform and forensics were there all the time, and Dewi stayed until the room was sealed. No-one went in, and nothing was taken. I checked.’

She leaned back in the chair, legs crossed, and swung one foot rather jerkily.
‘Actually, I’m not happy about this Polgreen character being involved. Professor Williams doesn’t have a good word to say for him.’

‘
George is the only one who knows anything about Ned’s activities, and this isn’t the first time Williams has bad-mouthed him.’

‘
I don’t want him involved.’ She rose. ‘It’s inappropriate.’

‘
I’ll pass the word,’ McKenna said. ‘What about Edith?’

‘
I don’t have much choice, do I? Call in a doctor, just in case, as well as her solicitor.’

*

Edith had exhausted her supply of fortitude. Face chalk-white, eyes red, hands trembling uncontrollably like dry twigs in the wind, she faced McKenna and Janet across the table in the interview room, her solicitor by her side. The pretty dress which had looked so fresh that morning hung around her body like grave-rags.

‘
You contacted the GP at around three forty-five on Friday afternoon,’ McKenna said. ‘Before he arrived, some fifteen minutes later, you straightened Ned’s clothing. Is that correct?’

She nodded, her neck stiff.
‘Yes.’

‘
And only you and Phoebe were in the house?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Did Phoebe enter Ned’s room?’

‘
I wouldn’t let her. I didn’t want her to see him.’

‘
You had lunch together, downstairs, at around two o’clock. Is that correct?’

‘
Yes.’ Her voice was little more than a croak.

‘
What did you do afterwards?’

‘
I can’t remember.’

‘
Please try, Mrs Harris. Did you wash the dishes?’

‘
Yes.’ Her face brightened a little. ‘Yes, I washed up and tidied the kitchen. Then I made myself some coffee.’

‘
Then what?’

‘
I took it to the sitting room.’

‘
What did you do there? Were you reading, watching television? Did you perhaps telephone someone?’

‘
I think I read the paper. I like to read the paper every day.’

‘
When did Ned return to his room?’

‘
As soon as we finished lunch.’

‘
What would he usually do in the afternoon?’

‘
I don’t know. Write, or listen to his records, I suppose, if he wasn’t going out.’ Snatching a handkerchief from her pocket, Edith wiped her eyes, then began to tear at the fabric.

‘
You said you heard a noise, like a fall. What time was that?’

‘
I don’t know.’

‘
Approximately.’

‘
I don’t know!’

‘
Before three? After?’ McKenna asked. ‘How much time passed between your hearing a noise and going upstairs?’

‘
I don’t know!’ She balled the handkerchief, knuckles white. ‘I thought he’d just dropped something. I started peeling vegetables for dinner.’

‘
Where were you when you heard the bump?’

‘
In the sitting room, I think.’

The solicitor intervened.
‘Mr Harris made a number of alterations to the house. Originally, there were six ground floor rooms, but he knocked the breakfast room and sitting room into one, blocking off the back staircase, and partly extended the kitchen. As you know, Mr Jones’s room faces the back, but the floor area is partly over the sitting room.’

‘
I could’ve heard it from the kitchen, as well,’ Edith added. ‘Sounds go up and down the staircase.’

‘
So when did you begin to worry?’ McKenna asked.

‘
It sort of fretted at me, not being able to hear him. I even went into the hall once or twice to listen. You know, for shuffling noises, moving around noises.’ She fell silent, tearing at the handkerchief again. ‘It
felt
different, like I was alone in the house, and I knew I wasn’t, so I went up again, and knocked very hard on the door.’ Tears began to trickle down her cheeks. ‘He didn’t answer, so I went in, and found him like that.’

‘
Where exactly was Phoebe?’

‘
When?’

‘
What did she do after lunch?’

‘
I told you. She went for a walk, and the cat was wandering in and out of the kitchen, waiting for her. He kept getting under my feet.’

‘
When did she come back?’

‘
I can’t remember. It’s all a jumble in my head.’

‘
After you called the doctor? Before?’

‘
After.’

‘
Which way did she come into the house?’

‘
The back door. She uses the gate in the garden wall.’

‘
Did you see her come in?’

‘
I heard her.’

Shuffling through his notes, McKenna said:
‘How many keys are there to Ned’s room? We found his in the desk.’

‘
Two?’ Edith said. ‘I’m not really sure. I keep spare keys in the bureau in the study.’

‘
Who knows about the spare keys?’

‘
Everybody.’

‘
Jason?’

‘
Jason?’

‘
He’s a frequent visitor,’ McKenna said.

‘
Mina might have told him, but I wouldn’t. There’s no need for him to know, is there?’

‘
Do Phoebe and Mina have their own house keys?’

‘
Mina does. Phoebe’s too young. Annie’s got a key, too, and Iolo and Solange.’

‘
Why do the professor and his wife have keys?’

‘
In case I’m ill,’ Edith said.

‘
Was Ned in the habit of locking his door?’

‘
Sometimes. He liked his privacy.’

‘
When would he lock the door? Day? Night? When he was out?’

‘
I don’t know! I never checked!’ She looked at the rag of linen in her hands. ‘I remember opening his room now and then for the cleaner.’

‘
She comes every Wednesday, doesn’t she? How long is she in the house?’

‘
All day.’

‘
Did she do Ned’s room every week?’

‘
She did the bathroom and bedroom.’ A brief, sad smile touched her lips. ‘And the parts she could reach in his study. She was always complaining about only being able to do half a job in there.’

McKenna glanced through his notes.
‘Did you hear any other odd noises on Friday afternoon?’

‘
Like what?’

‘
Anything unusual, out of place.’

‘
I don’t think so.’

‘
Were the front and back doors open?’

‘
I can’t remember about the front door. The back door was open because it was so hot.’

‘
Can you tell me how you buy your milk?’ McKenna asked.

‘
Milk?’ Edith’s bloodshot eyes goggled.

‘
The antibiotics may have been dissolved in milk.’

‘
Oh.’

‘
Well?’

‘
The milkman leaves three pints a day.’

‘
What happens when you run short?’

‘
Phoebe goes to the shops.’

‘
Did you run short any day last week?’

She frowned.
‘I’m not sure. I might’ve done.’

‘
Remembering that you’re making this statement under caution, Mrs Harris,’ McKenna said, ‘is there anything you want to add, remove, or amend, in respect of the information you’ve already given?’

Edith looked to her solicitor.
‘Is there?’

*

After Edith left, almost welded to her solicitor’s arm as if that were another crutch, McKenna returned to his office. ‘That was a total waste of time, and I’ve completely scuppered the chance of further co-operation from her.’

Janet leaned on his desk, one hand massaging her abdomen.

‘Have you seen the doctor yet?’ he added.

‘
I’ll live.’ She smiled wanly.

‘
You look very pale, and people are beginning to notice your less than blooming health.’

‘
By “people”, you mean Dewi Prys, I suppose.’

‘
No, not Dewi. Rowlands commented, and Diana Bradshaw asked if you had a dodgy health record.’

‘
Perhaps I should stick up a notice in the canteen: “Janet Evans is pregnant. Volunteers required to give the good news to her father, the Reverend Edwin Evans.”‘

‘
Have you seen him lately?’

‘
We spoke on the phone the other day. I can’t face either him or my mother at the moment.’ She sat down, and took cigarettes and lighter from her bag. ‘And please don’t lecture me about smoking, sir. I’m trying to cut down.’

‘
I wasn’t going to. Have you been in touch with the baby’s father yet?’

‘
I haven’t done anything. I don’t know what to do for the best, so I’m doing nothing. I decided yesterday I wanted the baby, and felt very proud, very confident and really happy.’ She inhaled deeply, then coughed, rubbing her throat. ‘And today I feel absolutely terrible, as if I’ve lost all control over my life, so God knows how I’ll feel tomorrow.’

‘
D’you want to go home?’

‘
I’m OK. Having a moan can be very therapeutic.’ She smiled again, more warmly. ‘Something’s puzzling me about what Edith said. If the noise she heard was Ned falling, why didn’t she find him on the floor? D’you think she put him in the chair, as well?’

‘
Is she strong enough? She’s quite lightly built.’

‘
He was probably only a little heavier than she is, and Phoebe could move mountains if need be.’

McKenna fidgeted with his own cigarettes.
‘We must ask her about buying extra milk. You’d better do that, as I’ve blotted my copybook there, too.’

‘
You like her, don’t you?’

‘
She has unusual qualities.’

‘
Inspector Rowlands thinks she’s like a loaded gun minus the safety catch, and her curiosity’s enough to kill most of the cats in North Wales.’

‘
I know.’

‘
Don’t you find her rather odd, sir? She goes from one mood to something completely different in the blink of an eye, and for no apparent reason.’

‘
She’s very young, Janet, and she has a somewhat abnormal existence with a near-addict mother and a potentially delinquent sister. Apart from that, she’s had a terrible shock. She was very close to Ned.’ Lighting the cigarette he had been rolling between his fingers, he asked: ‘Have you come across any discrepancies in the statements?’

‘
Only odds and ends, mostly to do with timing, but people hardly ever remember things like that with any accuracy. Inspector Rowlands suggested doing a cross index of significant times, activities and people, to see what shows up. He’s started something similar with the dodgy cars.’