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“What about spare-time activities? I know she was an amateur actress.”

“Oh yes, for quite a while. Very good too, it's said, took on big parts and did them well. Don't suppose there were the same opportunities in London—too big and busy, and too much professional competition for the little amateur drama groups to thrive.”

“I suppose so. But when was she in London?”

That needed consideration. Still, George was good on time.

“I'd say some time in the eighties. About six or seven
years she was away from the Yorkshire area. Mid-eighties, I'd say.”

“But she came back?”

“She did that. Maybe they didn't respond so well to her methods in the south. Maybe the competition was too fierce in London. She was an executive in a chain of women's shops, specializing in the teenage and young twenties market. When she came back she said she was tired of London—of course she did, they all do—and that she had had an offer she couldn't refuse, and loved being back in Yorkshire.”

“You're sounding cynical, George.”

“Offers you can't refuse tend to be angled for before they get made. She was unhappy in London, people think, and not doing as well as expected there. She got out before she was pushed.”

“So she came back here, did more drama—oh, what was the job, by the way?”

“She was part of the management team for Wool-worth's, in West Yorkshire.”

“Right. More money than the first job in textiles, but maybe not more interesting.”

“Not for her, I should think. She had always thought of herself as a highflier.”

“Then suddenly she takes up with the church. I find that very hard to explain—in someone who had specialized in the daring, the unorthodox, the
bold
.”

George Wilson was enjoying a creamy and custardy dessert, and he went on eating to get his thoughts in order.

“I don't know her well enough to comment, but I can
think of a couple of points you ought to take into consideration. First of all, it's still only recently that women have been admitted to the clergy. It's new, trailblazing, even theatrical. So to that extent it
was
a bold move.”

“Yes, I made that point to Evelyn Southwell.”

“
She'd
know all about theatrical . . . God rest her soul. Second, my old dad used to say that the church was one career where you could get ahead without an ounce of brainpower or common sense or judgment. I seem to remember he used to add: ‘same applies to the police and the army,' but a lot has happened in those bodies since his time. Anyway, maybe women in the church are enjoying their power and influence, their place in the community, and some of them—maybe like Jean Mannering—who never found their place in industry, administration or whatever have taken flight to the church and maybe found their niche there. I don't suppose Jean would see it like that herself, though.”

“What kind of career has she had in the C of E?”

“I only know what I read in the papers. Seems to have done pretty well for herself. She had a parish for a bit—somewhere in the Dewsbury area, I think—and then she got a special job of being flown in, so to speak, to parishes with unexpected vacancies, problems and so on. This was quite a high-profile job, and it was a way of using her to best advantage before she reached retirement age, which she won't do for another three or four years. Bishoprics are out for women, as I'm sure you know, but there's been talk of her going on synod or convocation or the House of Holy Toffs or whatever the top body is called.”

“And there hasn't been a problem with her being lesbian?”

“Not so far as I know, which is what I read in the paper. Silent as the grave. Perhaps she's assured them that it's in the past. That's what several homosexuals have said, isn't it? ‘Yes, we used to, but now we've attained a state of chastity.' Ee—these religious people tie themselves up in knots sometimes, don't they?”

“About sex they do,” said Eve, not feeling qualified to go any further. “I wonder why sex looms so much larger in their thinking than the other sins. But we haven't talked about her emotional life.”

“That's because I know nowt—except of course what I heard as gossip, and like I said, that wasn't much. People lost interest. But there was talk about a succession of ‘partners,' both before and after London, and during too I would guess, wouldn't you? When she started studying for the church, I imagine she got more circumspect. I haven't heard the slightest bit of gossip, that's what makes me think that. The reason I know there was always a ‘best friend' goes back to the days when her mother and father ran the corner shop in Drake Street. With close friends they used to gossip a bit, and when they did, of course it got around. Just before they moved down south—”

“When would that be?”

“Oh, early eighties maybe. Just before that they said to somebody that Jean always had a current best friend, and either she broke them in, and then lost interest in them, or they rebelled and moved out. She may have changed when she ‘got God,' but I wouldn't put my money on it, would you?”

No, Eve thought. Though she had to admit that, judging by the present-day Jean Mannering, she didn't see the magnetism and vital attraction of the woman. Perhaps religion
had
turned her conventional.

 • • • 

Detective Constable Omkar Rani was halfway through the second of the corridored sections of Autumn Prospect when he came upon Mrs. Lancaster, who was delighted her turn was come.

“I've been watching you,” she said. “Through a crack in my door. You've been
ages
. You didn't see me, did you?”

“No, I didn't,” said Rani. “You must have been clever about it.”

“Oh I am. You have to be here. The slightest thing and some of them complain. I'm Dora Lancaster, by the way. Dorothea on the birth certificate. Everyone here calls me ‘Old Mrs. Lancaster,' which is nonsense when ‘old' is what all of us are.”

“Of course it is. How did it come about?”

“My son married a flashy woman who makes a bit of a stir in Bradford social circles. Talk about a big fish in diminishing waters! So I became ‘old' Mrs. Lancaster long before I came here . . . You're a good-looking boy.”

“Thank you. And you're a good-looking lady.”

“Good looking doesn't apply after seventy-five. We've got our minds on other things, and so have our nearest and dearest: who's going to get the loot?” She cackled. “It won't be young Mrs. Lancaster or her foolish husband, I can tell you that. So what do you want?”

“I want to talk about the day Mrs. Southwell died.”

“Well, I guessed that. I told the other policeman who
came around what I was doing that day. He was very offhand, and seemed to have made up his mind that none of us could have done it. Probably thought we were too feeble to have held the pillow down. So I just answered the questions he asked and nothing else.”

Rani looked at her, and she looked back almost flirtatiously.

“I'd better see if I can ask some other questions, then, hadn't I?”

“You could try asking questions about Evelyn.”

“All right: how did you get on with Mrs. Southwell?”

“Not badly. Quite well really. We'd both got all our marbles, which is more than can be said for some of them here. Of course she was a show-off, and basically a rather silly person, because everything had to come back to herself. But you could have a conversation with her, and that's a bit of a miracle because topics of conversation don't abound in places like this.”

“I suppose they don't. When was the last time you had a real conversation with Mrs. Southwell?”

“On the afternoon of the day she was murdered. Say four thirty to five.”

Rani's eyebrows rose, and so did his heart.

“That's very exact.”

“I always have my tea at four thirty. Everyone knows that and knows that's the time to call on me. Evelyn did that quite often: she liked tea and a biscuit, or a piece of cake or a little sandwich. It makes a break in the day.”

“So she came in and had a cup of tea, something to eat, and you talked?”

“Yes.”

“Had she come because there was something she wanted to talk about?”

“Yes. Or that was my impression. She'd had a visit from a woman. Or not exactly a visit. Not a social call.”

“What sort of a call then?”

“You might say a snooping one.” She cackled again. “More like a visit from the social services. A lot of dogooders they are, who do precious little good when it comes down to it.”

“Did the visitor say she was from the DSS?”

“Not really. She came about lunchtime or just after and flashed some kind of ID with her photograph on it. She said there were worries about security.”

“Oh really. What kind of worries? Did she say?”

“Worries about keys getting into the wrong hands.”

“So what did she propose to do about that?”

“She wanted to take a record of Evelyn's keys, so that if an identical one turned up, it could be identified.”

Rani pondered this gnomic rationale.

“Well, I can see why Mrs. Southwell might have been worried,” he said.

“She gave over the keys readily enough, but then she started thinking. Wouldn't it have been better to change the locks? The woman came back in twenty minutes, said they had a record of both of them now and she needn't worry, because she was perfectly safe.”

“Was that all?”

“Yes. She marched out when Evelyn started to ask her questions.”

“And did Mrs. Southwell say what she looked like? Did she know her?”

“Oh no. She didn't know her, not even by sight. She said she was a typical social worker—fairly efficient and usually sympathetic but no time to be anything more than that. The sort who can't wait to be gone, but usually disguise it pretty well. We all know the type here.”

Rani liked Mrs. Lancaster and thought that, for all her age and infirmities, she would make a superb witness in the box. He thanked her, and went on his way full of hope that he was on to something. He first went around to the other two detective constables doing their run-of-the-mill job from door to door. None of them had been told about a social worker who was worried about keys and security. They both agreed to ask specifically from then on, and to check with the residents they had already talked to. Then Rani strolled over to the porter's lodge.

“Did you happen to have any social workers visiting patients on the day Mrs. Southwell died?” he asked. The porter flicked back the pages of his visitors' book and peered at the entry.

“We call them residents, not patients, young fellow. Mrs. Ellenborough called to see Mr. Baxter. He won't be with us long. Miss Tonstall visited Mrs. Walton.”

“When was this?”

“First at half past ten. Left at a quarter to eleven. The second at ten past eleven, left at a quarter past.”

“Anyone come at lunchtime or just after?”

“No, just the two that whole day. That's pretty much par for the course.”

“Any other visitors—family, friends—around lunchtime?”

“No. That's not a usual time to visit. There was one at a quarter to twelve, then not another till ten to four.”

“Were you here in your lodge all the time during lunch hour?”

He peered down again.

“No. I note when something comes up. Security isn't top-notch here because there's only me, or my relief at nights. We do try to put up a show of efficiency, though. I was out for ten minutes to see Mr. Baxter, who'd been upset by the social worker. That was one thirty to forty. Then out again when I went to replenish the stock of blankets. That was from two fifteen to two forty. Then I was on duty continuous till I finished at five.”

“Did you see anyone around? Anyone who might be apparently loitering but really was keeping an eye on you to see if you left your post?”

He thought. Rani guessed he was slow but thorough.

“There was a woman. Neat and tidy. Went to the hairdresser's regularly, or did her own very cleverly. My missus was a hairdresser, so I notice. Light makeup or none at all I'd guess, though I was too far away to be sure.”

“Clothes?”

“Short jacket, sensible design, probably waterproof, beige color, then an old-fashioned sort of skirt, just below the knees, and flat shoes. Didn't look the sort to loiter, but she was sort of shilly-shallying around.”

“What do you mean? What did she do?”

“Well, she passed the entrance slowly, and I took notice, but not particular notice, but then she came back past the door, walking a little faster, and I wondered what she could have been doing, because there's no shops along there, only houses, and she didn't seem to have had
the time to have made a proper call. The last I saw of her she was on the other side of the road, going through the gate of that house over there—that one, see?—with the for sale notice up. Then I went to do the blankets.”

Bingo! thought Rani.