A Woman Unknown (22 page)

‘Did anyone discover who fired the shot that grazed Miss Windham’s arm?’

He shook his head. ‘No one owned up to it.’

‘Where were you when it happened?’

He put down his cup. ‘I don’t know. One hears shots all the time, naturally. I was not close enough to see anything. I heard about the accident at lunch. Lord Fotheringham was quite cut up about it.’

‘Well thank you. I had meant to ask Philippa about it, but it didn’t quite arise. It must be a sensitive subject for her.’

King became suddenly animated. ‘I see what you are thinking. Was the shot meant for Everett?’

‘It had crossed my mind. But of course I do not know who was there, in the vicinity, or if someone in attendance might have had a motive.’

He leapt from his chair. ‘If you wait, I can tell you exactly who was there that day.’

‘That would be a help.’

‘Excuse me.’

After some little while, King reappeared, carrying a handsome, leather-bound diary. ‘Here we are.’ He turned the pages. ‘Monday, 13
^th
August.’

I took out my notebook.

‘I am very impressed, Mr King. Have you kept a diary long?’

‘I was brought up to keep a diary. Jot down what’s happening in the world, what I have achieved, or not, and any pressing thoughts. I would rather no one sees it, but it interests me to look back year by year and remember whom I met and where, and how my ideas and opinions change.’

From his diary for 13th August, he read the names of Lord Fotheringham’s guests.

I jotted the names in my notebook, asking him for comments about each person, and their relation to Runcie.

At the end of the list, I was no wiser as to who might have fired the shot.

‘What about the staff?’ I asked. ‘The beaters and so on. Is there anyone among them who was recently recruited?’

He shook his head. ‘Not that I know of. They are all men known to the estate manager.’

So much for my theory.

‘Mr King, what do you have for your diary entries over the weekend and in the days before Mr Runcie’s murder? Is there anything at all unusual, anything he said that you may have remembered, any visitors?’

‘I could tell you that without looking, but I will check. This has not been a very sociable household lately, as you can imagine. That day at the races was the only time we went out, and you were there yourself so you know we were not a large party.’ He glanced at a page, and read, ‘Friday 31
^st
August.
Supervising inventory all day. Scratch supper
. That was how I spent most of that week, and this weekend just gone. It’s a big job, separating out what in
each room goes home with Philippa and what stays here as belonging to the house. We have still another dozen rooms to attend to.’

‘Yes, quite a time-consuming task. You do not do it alone I suppose?’

‘Heavens no,’ King said. ‘I have Simpson and Withers alongside. My only time off this weekend was to go to church. The vicar came back with us for sherry, and luncheon. That was it for the day.’ He flicked through the pages once more. ‘According to my diary I have been fagged out almost every night, and went to bed early.’

I had not told King about Leonard Diamond’s death. Yet he had given me an alibi for this weekend, when it must have happened. I pictured Diamond and King in the grandstand on the day of the Ebor Handicap. King had chivalrously prevented Diamond from taking a photograph of the Runcies and Miss Windham. But surely he could not have had any other connection with the photographer? All the same, the memory of that event gave me pause for thought.

‘You’re so busy, Mr King, and I have taken up too much of your time. Please give Philippa my good wishes.’

‘I will. And feel free to call on me at any time. I am glad to be of service.’

He walked me to the door.

‘Thank you for the coffee.’

‘A pleasure.’

In spite of the coffee, my head throbbed as I walked away.

It occurred to me that King had been very prompt to supply me with a list of other people’s names. This could
have been out of his desire to be helpful, or it could have been because he wanted to point me in the wrong direction.

Having been a theology student, knowing the commandments, did not put him in the ranks of the angels, of that I felt sure.

Blame the reaction to the horror of discovering Len Diamond’s body, or too much brandy. When I arrived home, I slid onto the chaise longue in the drawing room, and fell asleep.

My dream must have been prompted by hearing about Mrs Hartigan’s death, and imagining Deirdre’s feelings. I dreamed my own mother died, and I was given the news. In the dream, it was unclear exactly who had died. I tried to find out whether it was the woman I thought of as my real mother: Ginny, who adopted me and brought me up, or my birth mother, she whom I could only ever think of as Mrs Whitaker, who lived in Wakefield, in White Swan Yard, and who gave me up when I was only weeks old. There was a sense of panic when I woke. I had asked the question, but had no answer. Who is it? Who is dead?

My head ached. I was desperate for a glass of water and went into the kitchen, thinking about Deirdre Fitzpatrick, wondering where she had fled.

Mrs Sugden heard me, and appeared. ‘I kept quiet. I was going to do the stairs and landing but when I saw you
sleeping, I didn’t want to disturb you. I’ve made a stew. You better have some by the look of you.’

As we sat at the kitchen table, I told Mrs Sugden about Len Diamond’s death, and about Mrs Hartigan’s death, and Deirdre’s disappearance.

‘No wonder you had to escape into dreamland.’ She ladled rabbit stew into a dish. ‘Do you think this Deirdre person has run mad and done away with herself?’ Mrs Sugden was generous with her helpings. Stories of death always made her hungry. ‘With that nursing home being near Roundhay Park, the poor lass could have been drawn to the lake.’

The stew tasted good. ‘Something tells me that Deirdre Fitzpatrick is made of stouter stuff than to drown herself.’

Mrs Sugden knew about Sykes’s soft spot for Deirdre. ‘Aye, well if she can turn Mr Sykes’s head, and he with no fondness for left footers, she must have a way with her.’

The remark about left footing reminded me of Deirdre’s Catholicism. ‘I wonder if she’s gone somewhere to say prayers for the dead. Whatever else she may or may not have done, she was devoted to her mother.’

‘Search me. And it’s no use asking Miss Merton. She doesn’t mix with Irish Catholics. They’re a different breed altogether, according to her.’

Elizabeth Merton is our neighbour, a single lady, and Catholic convert, who keeps house for her professor brother.

Sookie chose that moment to leap from her spot on the rocking chair and stroll up to us, waving her tail in the
air. Perhaps she recognised Miss Merton’s name as the person who came to look in on her on the rare occasions that both Mrs Sugden and I were away from home at the same time. Or perhaps she wanted to lick the dishes.

‘Happen there’s some man in the picture,’ Mrs Sugden suggested. ‘If Mrs Fitzpatrick is not crying on her husband’s shoulder, then maybe there’s someone else.’

That brought me back to part two of my plan. For all I knew, Deirdre Fitzpatrick may have a string of gentlemen friends, or none at all. But I knew of only one name, time and place: Joseph Barnard, weekend of 24th August at the Adelphi Hotel. I stroked Sookie, and then went to the dining room drawer where I had tucked away the
Pirates of Penzance
programme. It gave a list of other performances. Tonight’s performance, at eight o’clock, would be
HMS Pinafore
at Wakefield Opera House.

‘Mrs Sugden, do you fancy seeing a Gilbert & Sullivan opera this evening?’

‘Where?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Wakefield Opera House.’

‘No I do not. You dash about that much, you’ll take years off your life.’ She forced a piece of seedcake on me. ‘The City Varieties and the Empire are good enough for me.’

I bit into the cake. The inevitable seed lodged in a tooth. ‘Well I’m going. I want to take another look at Giuseppe Barnardini. He plays the George Grossmith parts so I expect he’ll be Sir Joseph, First Lord of the Admiralty.’

‘It’ll be dark when you come out. You’re not driving are you?’

‘Don’t worry. My trusty Jowett hasn’t let me down yet.’

It does not do to tempt fate. My sturdy 1913 motor should be in her prime. Perhaps she disapproved of my mission, mistrusted light opera, or the subversive lyrics of Mr Gilbert.

On a country road, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the motor began to lose power and choked out a rasp. I pressed on the accelerator. Something rattled. I de-clutched to a lower gear. The rattling increased. Whiffs of smoke rose from under the bonnet, giving off a burning smell. After half a mile of this, I slowed down, thinking a rest might do the trick. I got out and touched the bonnet; hot enough to cook a dinner. I tried to remember when the oil and water were checked.

‘Sorry, little Jowett.’

My sweet car looked very sorry for itself.

For a good ten minutes, I sat hopefully by the roadside, in expectation of rescue. A man on a slow horse-drawn cart offered me a lift. After another twenty minutes, I wished I had accepted. There must be an inn, or a house, or a garage nearby from where I could telephone. I tried to remember, from my previous drives in this direction, where the nearest human habitation would be. All I could recall was the pub, passed some miles back.

The engine cooled but came back to life with the same fearful rattle. Just as I was about to set off walking, another Jowett appeared, coming from the opposite direction. The driver stopped. He was a Bradford man with a neat moustache and greying hair. Together we examined the motor.

‘Your radiator hose has gone, Miss,’ he announced. ‘Where are you heading?’

‘Wakefield.’

‘Have you ever been towed?’

‘No.’

‘Keep the distance of the rope.’

My eternal gratitude to my fellow Jowetteer and the unnerving experience of being towed into Wakefield need not form part of this story. Suffice to say that
HMS Pinafore
had long set sail when, hungry, thirsty and upset about my poor motor, I gave the stage doorkeeper a note to be passed, urgently, to Giuseppe Barnardini, asking him to meet a lady from Leeds at the stage door after the performance.

By the time Barnardini’s rendition of “ruler of the Queen’s navee” had the house roaring with laughter, I wondered whether he might link the note to Deirdre, not wish to see her, and find another way out of the theatre.

After the performance, I sat on the hard bench in the stage door area, and waited. Members of the chorus hurried out first, calling their goodnights to the doorman, who studiously ignored me.

It was a good twenty minutes before Joseph Barnard appeared. He looked quite different out of costume and without make-up, but with that presence actors have, the art of filling a space, and of letting you know they are there. His cautious glance gave nothing away.

I stood up. ‘Mr Barnard.’

‘The lady from Leeds?’ If he had expected someone else, whatever disappointment or relief he felt was well hidden.

‘Sorry to be so mysterious.’ I handed him my card, the one that gives my name and the ominous words ‘private investigator’. He ran his tongue across his lips, but said nothing. ‘We have a mutual friend.’ I glanced, in what I hoped was a meaningful way, at the doorkeeper who was pretending great interest in the evening paper.

The singer nodded. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He did not say my name. ‘Perhaps you’ll …’ He took my arm, gently at the elbow, called good night to the doorman, who now looked up, and gave a cheerful reply.

Once we were outside, I said, ‘I’m sorry to be mysterious. And congratulations on the performance tonight. You were wonderful.’

My once upon a time theatre director friend had assured me that these are always the best opening lines to a performer. He thanked me and relaxed a little. ‘We had a good audience. That always helps.’

It was a fine night. Outside the pub across the road from the theatre, a small crowd stood in the open air, drinking. I glanced at Barnard in the glow of the gas lamp. Perhaps he was putting on another performance, and Deirdre was finding her way back to his digs, or waiting somewhere for him.