False Accusations_Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide... Read online

  ‘What’s amiss with Jason?’ ‘There was bad blood between the two lads,’ she said obscurely, mopping out one of the trays and throwing the stained cloth into the sink. ‘That little minx, Jenny, she has them both on a string. First Jason and then Anthony. Of course, she gets free holidays from that place she works in, that holiday office in Brocklehurst.’

  ‘What’s that to do with our lads?’ Now he could feel anger well up in him. Jenny Trevor’s mother dead. The police around the house. What was she hinting at?

  ‘She goes out and she checks on the hotels and the beaches, all that sort of thing. Brings back a report. Can take a friend half price.’ His wife was a woman that loved gossip, but now she sounded downright miserable.

  ‘And Jason?’ It would be something about Jason that was worrying his wife. They had been married long enough for him to know that.

  ‘She took Jason with her last Easter, but this morning she took Anthony.’

  ‘This morning.’ Mr Osmotherley, no slow boy, as he said about himself, seized on this. ‘This morning? Before her mother collapsed?’

  ‘That’s right. They were to meet at the airport. Anthony went there last night by the bus. Jenny went off this morning in a taxi. She was leaving her car at her mother’s place. Went off about six o’clock in the morning. That’s what Mrs Fagg heard. Mrs Fagg said that young Ian drove the taxi. She asked him about it. He says he saw Mrs Trevor then. She came out to say goodbye to Jenny. And then later on in the morning, the other daughter, Rosie, rang the police. They say in the village that someone must have killed Mrs Trevor.’

  ‘And Jason? Why are you worried about him?’ Mr Osmotherley was a straightforward and courageous man. If there was bad news, then he would face it.

  ‘Anthony and he had a big row last night. Right in front of the whole village. Down in the Welcome Stranger,’ confessed his wife. Her voice shook.

  Mr Osmotherley thought about this. ‘They’re always having rows,’ he pointed out. But he was annoyed at this story. Didn’t mind the boys having the odd punch-up in their own place, but he wasn’t pleased at the idea of a fight in the local public house. Washing the family linen in front of the village was the way that he looked at it. He took another quick look out into the shop. Still no one there. ‘We’re talking about Mrs Trevor. What’s she got to do with it?’

  ‘Well, Jason would have it that she looked down on him because he was apprenticed to a butcher. He thought that Mrs Trevor egged on Jenny to think of Anthony because he was a university man and would be a lawyer. Apparently, Jason was saying all sorts of things about her last night. Blaming her for everything. Of course he had been drinking.’

  Mr Osmotherley thought about that. ‘Jenny suits herself. That’s the way they are nowadays. She wouldn’t ask her mother for permission. Look at our Susan. They go their own way. Anyway, what did you say about the girl, Rosie, going off with the police. Chances are that she did it. Always a bit strange, wasn’t she?’

  He thought she’d immediately correct him. She was always sorry for the girl, always made a pet of her, even trying to get that snobby mother of hers to agree to Rosie working in the butcher’s shop and so he felt worried when her face brightened up and she immediately said: ‘That would have been it.’

  She was, he knew then, very worried indeed about Jason.

  He looked at his watch. ‘I need to go into Brocklehurst,’ he said. ‘Want to have a word with that delicatessen place that buys our sausages. You’ll manage, won’t you? I’ll be back by three.’

  ‘I’ve put out your good suit, and a clean shirt,’ said Lily.

  A step ahead as usual, but she looked so upset that he gave her a quick kiss and said, ‘Don’t worry, love, I’ll have a word with the lad. I’ll sort him out.’

  Chapter 3

  ‘So that’s Badger, is it, Rosie?’ said the solicitor when the two policemen left the room. ‘And who were you in the play?’

  Nice man, thought Flora. Willing to take his time.

  Rosie beamed at him. ‘I was the Gaoler’s Daughter,’ she confided in her child-like way. ‘And I made myself a pretty little pinafore to wear. Everyone in the school said it was lovely. They all cheered and Badger said: “That’s ace, Rosie!”’

  Amazing how she remembered things. And very interesting how Rosie still believed in her own lies, thought Flora, wincing slightly. Of course the whole school, herself included, had gone along with the story that Rosie, who could hardly manage to cut out the petals for a daffodil to adorn a Mother’s Day card, had made, unaided, this beautiful pinafore, expertly tailored in the style of an Edwardian smock, with ruffles at the wrists, hemline and around the neck. Of course, her mother had made it, from an old sheet, according to Jenny in a whisper into her headteacher’s ear.

  I shouldn’t have done it, thought Flora, looking at the girl, now remanded for the murder of her own mother — I shouldn’t have allowed her to get attention by outrageous lies, but at the time it always seemed kinder to allow her a few minutes of borrowed glory. Rosie, throughout primary school, was cossetted and protected from too harsh reality.

  And, of course, at that age, where the headteacher led, the children followed!

  ‘And Jenny was Mole and Anthony Osmotherley was Ratty and Badger was him...’ Rosie nodded in the direction of the door through which the policemen had disappeared. ‘And he wrote me a lovely little song, didn’t he, Mrs Morgan? So sorry for Toad! And your Simon was the Chief Weasel and Jason was the Gaoler and Benjamin Rice was Toad ...’ Her face clouded over then. ‘I wish I was back there again,’ she said.

  ‘So do we all,’ said the solicitor heartily. ‘Simply messing about in boats. Nothing like it!’

  The quotation passed Rosie by. Unlike the play, acted by her friends, the book had been of no interest to her. She gave him a blank look and turned, trustingly, to her former headteacher. It was time, thought Flora to get down to business. Rosie was never shy, was always sure that any new person would be a new friend.

  ‘Now, Rosie, be a sensible girl and just tell us what happened.’ Flora said the words as bracingly as she could, but then realized that might not be possible. Rosie, she thought, was seldom sensible. This, she thought, was all turning into a nightmare. Rosie was looking at her in such a confused manner. It was always hard for Rosie to put things into a coherent sequence. Flora thought back quickly to those years at the primary school. How did she used to get a story out of her then?

  ‘Let’s start from the beginning,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You got up this morning, and you got dressed.’ She cast a quick glance at the girl. She was beautifully clothed, as always. And one had to credit Mrs Trevor for the way that her child was turned out. Today she was wearing a floating semi-transparent dress of pale pink with orange flowers, her hair, as ever, freshly shampooed. She looked a picture.

  Mr Bradley unobtrusively got out a pencil and notebook and waited. Flora was glad to see that, although he was keeping very much in the background, he was going to take a record of the conversation. She was conscious that this would be the best, or possibly the last chance to get everything out of Rosie. Things faded very fast from inside that lovely head. It would be important to have a record of her words while the events were still only a few hours old.

  ‘I got up and had a shower, and then I got dressed,’ Rosie contradicted, smiling sweetly. Flora’s hopes began to rise. She had played endless games of putting picture cards into sequences with Rosie at the five-year-old stage. It was obvious that the girl thought this was some sort of game.

  Mr Bradley scribbled something on the back page of his notebook and slid it towards her and she glanced down. Ask her what time it was when she got up.

  Easier said than done, thought Flora. Rosie had never learned to tell the time; though she would obediently read the numbers from a digital display, she seemed to be quite unable to relate them to daily tasks. ‘Was it early?’ Flora asked hopefully, after a few minutes of silence had elapsed, but Rosie just shrugged
her pretty shoulders. Her eyes were beginning to take on that slightly wary look that she wore when she knew that the questions were going to get too hard for her.

  ‘Had your mum gone to work when you got up in the morning?’ Flora noticed that Mr Bradley gave a rather horrified look at this, but she ignored him. It was a good question. A lot could be told from the way that Rosie answered it.

  She smiled, a pretty, slightly mischievous smile. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘I can get myself something to eat, now. I don’t need her any more these days.’ She said it proudly like a precocious six-year-old.

  Flora considered this. ‘Cereal?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah, cold ham and a roll and a can of diet coke.’

  It sounded more like lunch than breakfast, but then the habits of teenagers can be strange. Flora’s mind slipped to her Simon, but then she subdued the thought. With an effort she turned her attention back towards poor Rosie. Her son’s experience was different to Rosie’s. But there was one thing consistent about all teenagers, however. And that was they never got out of bed in the morning before noon unless there was some good reason. Simon, thought Flora, had not got up for early morning breakfast since he had left school. And her effort at an eleven o’clock meal this morning had ended in disaster.

  ‘So you had something to eat,’ she continued, smiling at Rosie to show her that she was getting the answers right. ‘And after that you went into your mum’s room.’

  Rosie nodded, looking troubled. Flora said nothing, just waited and breathed a silent prayer.

  ‘I just wanted a bit of her perfume,’ she said after a minute.

  ‘And what about your mother?’ The words were no sooner out of Flora’s mouth when she realised that she had made a bad mistake. Slowly and carefully, just coaxing the recollection of that morning from her, step by small step: that would have been the right approach. It never worked with Rosie to make too big a leap. Now she had been reminded of the drama in which she was playing the star role. She tossed the soft curls off her face and assumed a ‘bad girl’ pose.

  ‘I murdered the old bag.’

  ‘And she was still there? Hadn’t she gone to work?’

  Rosie looked at bit confused at the last question, gazing at her former teacher in a puzzled fashion for half a minute, trying her usual trick to read the answer from an adult’s face, and then her own face cleared.

  ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘She were dead, weren’t she?’

  ‘But who killed her?’ Flora tried to sound surprised.

  Rosie knew the answer for that. ‘I killed her, Mrs Morgan. I told you that, didn’t I?’ she said patiently.

  Flora’s heart began to hammer. This was not going to be as easy as she thought it would be. ‘Tell me how you did it, Rosie. Start at the beginning and tell me what you did first.’

  ‘I put the pillow over her face. Like they do on the telly.’

  ‘I see. Was she awake when you came into the room?’

  ‘Her eyes were open,’ said Rosie after a minute’s thought.

  That sounded hopeful. The wide open eyes of a dead woman. Was that what Rosie had seen?

  ‘Did she say anything?’

  Rosie shook her head. Her blue eyes clouded over and she began to get that stubborn look which all of her teachers knew so well. It was always a signal that a change to something simpler was necessary. She was malleable, but you could only push her so far. Some form of innate self-preservation seemed to kick in and tell her when she had had enough of hard questions.

  ‘And what did you do next?’ Flora heard her own voice ask the question brightly, in a tone that seemed to suggest that Rosie could answer this question easily.

  ‘Put the pillow over her face, didn’t I?’

  Rosie had learned something at secondary school, after all. She had learned this ‘teen-speak’ where every statement seems to end in an aggressive question. Flora sighed inwardly but carried on calmly. ‘What did your mother do when you put the pillow over her face?’

  During her training as an appropriate adult, the lady who had instructed Flora had emphasised the importance of not putting words into the accused person’s mouth. With Rosie this was very hard not to do.

  ‘She screamed. It was horrible.’ Rosie put a ghoulish emphasis on these words. ‘Anyway,’ she continued petulantly, ‘I want to talk to the policeman. He’s not doing his job, is he, Mrs Morgan? He should be the one asking questions, that’s his job, innit? Not yours? You’re retired now. Mum told me. You’re taking life easy; that’s what Mum said. She said that you were tired out. It’s hard work teaching; that’s what Mum said. She said that she was worn out with only two of us. She wanted to get rid of us and to have an easy life with her boyfriend.’

  Flora thought about this for a few seconds. Perhaps this was the moment to summon Sergeant Dawkins. If she let this go on any longer then Rosie might start to invent more details. She turned to the solicitor to find that he had half-risen to his feet. He obviously agreed with her that this was the moment for the statement to be taken.

  She nodded to him. ‘Will you ask Sergeant Dawkins to come in, Mr Bradley?’ she asked.

  ‘And the telly?’ enquired Rosie, sitting up very straight and flicking her fingers through her blonde curls.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Flora, and found herself crossing her fingers.

  They were back in a couple of seconds, P.C. Prior quietly seating himself slightly behind Rosie before taking out his notebook. Sergeant Dawkins, to give him his due, tried a reassuring smile before switching on the tape recorder and giving the names and positions of all present in the room. Rosie preened herself a little at this; she had obviously been watching quite a few police procedurals on the TV.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to begin, Mrs Morgan,’ said Sergeant Dawkins in a low voice as he watched the needle of his tape recorder.

  ‘Rosie,’ Flora made her voice very clear, very much of the school-teacher tone. ‘I’d like you to tell the sergeant about this morning. Start again at the very beginning.’

  ‘I got up, had a shower, got dressed and went into the kitchen and had a roll, some cold ham and a diet coke,’ chanted Rosie. Unfortunately it sounded slightly rehearsed, but the solicitor had been present so he should be able to bear witness to the fact that there had been no coaching.

  ‘And what did you do then?’

  ‘Went into Mum’s bedroom.’ Her eyes slid away at that and she fiddled with her hair uneasily.

  ‘To borrow some of her perfume?’ Flora prompted with a smile and was glad to see that the girl looked relieved at being spared the confession of this sin.

  ‘Just a very little spray,’ she said prettily. She sniffed the front of her dress unselfconsciously and glanced invitingly at Jim Prior.

  ‘And what did you do then?’ My fingers tightened on my lap, but Rosie wouldn’t notice things like that. There was still a smile on her teacher’s face and that was a signal to her that all was well.

  ‘I got a fright,’ she said.

  And then, of course, Sergeant Dawkins had to take over with his caution. Rosie didn’t look as though she minded this. She watched a huge amount of TV. According to the former secretary of the village school, Paula, who lived not far away from Dewhurst Lane, the TV was blaring from midday onwards whenever she walked her dog up the lane. Rosie would have heard these police cautions time after time on TV dramas. However, it broke the sequence of questions and reminded her of her starring role.

  ‘Was your mother there?’

  A look of self-importance came on Rosie’s face.

  ‘Yes,’ she said nodding her head. ‘She was there lying on the bed.’

  Sergeant Dawkins sat back. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said softly.

  ‘Well, I killed her,’ said Rosie and glanced at the door as if expecting the TV crew to come in for her dramatic moment.

  ‘How did you kill her?’ Flora couldn’t fault his voice — it was gentle and considerate.

  ‘I pushed a pillow ove
r her mouth and held it there until she stopped breathing.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’ The question was a stock one and Rosie gave the stock answer.

  ‘Because I was fed up with her pushing me around.’

  ‘And what time was this at?’ That question foxed Rosie. She twisted the bangle on her wrist, eyeing it as if she expected to see a watch. Or perhaps this is what she had seen others do when they were asked about that, to her, nebulous concept: time.

  A lot hinged on this.

  ‘Was it twelve o’clock?’ He paused but Rosie said nothing, just eyed him, waiting for some facial clue. Even by the time that she left primary school she had become expert at reading faces. Inexperienced temporary teachers were often fooled into thinking that she knew much more than she actually did because of this.

  ‘Or was it ten o’clock?’ Another pause, still Rosie said nothing. Just waited, smiling prettily.

  ‘Or was it eight o’clock?’ There was a finality about that last question, and Rosie, a graduate in reading teacher’s face, knew that her cue had been given.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it was eight o’clock.’

  ‘Eight o’clock exactly?’

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ said Rosie, always willing to please.

  Then he made a mistake — too eager to wrap up the case quickly. ‘How do you know?’ he asked leaning forward very slightly.

  Rosie leaned back, retreating from this pressure. That was a question too far. She wasn’t going to betray her lack of knowledge of clocks and watches. Secondary school hadn’t been as kind to her as primary school. There had been, Flora had heard, a lot of teasing even among the denizens of the remedial stream where she had spent seven years.

  ‘I just know,’ she said stubbornly.

  ‘You know that it was exactly eight o’clock in the morning, eight a.m.’ Sergeant Dawkins pronounced the words clearly and distinctly, but Flora could see his index fingers and thumbs rub against each other. He wanted his pencil back. He glanced up at the clock on the wall and then at his watch as if checking that they were mathematically synchronised.