Cath Staincliffe - Go Not Gently

She nodded, noncommittal.

‘You’ll contact your friend and find out what day she rang you?’

‘Yes.’ I tried then and there but all I got was Rachel’s answerphone. I reminded her of my home number and asked her to ring me as soon as possible.

‘I’ll take the tape.’

I ejected it and handed it over.

‘We’ll be in touch if there’s anything else.’

‘This might give him an alibi though, might it?’

She zipped up her jacket. ‘It’s a bit flimsy,’ she said. ‘All it proves, if we can establish it’s Thursday, is that he rang sometime after nine.’

‘And before nine thirty.’

She frowned.

I held my hand out for the tape.

‘Listen, Rachel says the time again when she rings back. It pinpoints it. Jimmy must have rung in that half-hour.’

I played Rachel’s second message. Sergeant Bell listened. But she didn’t give anything away, just nodded when it finished. I gave the tape back to her. She slipped it in a plastic bag, then in her pocket. Pulled on her gloves. And left.

Why hadn’t the police asked me directly about any answerphone messages? I wasn’t the only sloppy one. If Jimmy had been giving that as an alibi it should have been checked out straightaway. What on earth was the point of all the allusions to whether he’d been in contact when what they had to corroborate was whether a message had been left on my machine that Thursday morning? I felt my cheeks grow warm with rising anger. And because of their beating round the bush the message could so easily have been lost.

I locked up and climbed the stairs. The tape proved that Jimmy hadn’t killed Tina. It must be at least half an hour’s drive from Levenshulme to Swift Deliveries over the far side of Swinton. Tina had been alive at nine fifteen, dead at ten o’clock and Jimmy had rung me between nine and nine thirty. No way could he have made that call and been in Levenshulme at the crucial time. Jimmy Achebe wasn’t a murderer.

But if Jimmy hadn’t killed Tina then who the hell had?

At home, the cake lay cooling on the side. Maddie stood on a chair at the sink washing up. Totally absorbed.

‘She’s not shy, is she?’ Sheila smiled, tipped her head at Maddie.

‘No,’ I said. Cranky, opinionated, moody? Yes. Shy? No. ‘Wait till the honeymoon’s over.’

‘You get the worst of it,’ she said. ‘Mothers do. Do you work with the police much?’

‘Oh no, not at all. They wanted to talk to me about a case they’re covering. The suspect’s an ex-client.’

‘Sounds very dramatic.’

‘It’s not usually,’ I said. ‘The job is ninety per cent waiting around or looking up forms and checking facts and figures.’ The other ten per cent could be particularly hairy, though. I’d been stabbed and shot at on two previous cases where things had turned very nasty.

We were interrupted by the arrival of Ray and Tom. Tea and cakes were devoured and then the demands of domesticity pushed work from my mind.

Saturday had been dominated by the job. Sunday, I restricted myself to a perfunctory phone call to Agnes arranging to see her Monday morning.

Agnes was looking quite chipper when I arrived. She’d made an excellent recovery from the flu. I declined her offer of tea.

I was anxious to get straight down to business.

‘I went on Saturday,’ I began, ‘but Lily didn’t seem very well at all. She was wandering about when I got there and later she lost track of time. She was talking about the war years and her husband, George. She got quite distressed too, frightened, claimed that people were stealing from her, trying to poison her. Sounds just like what happened at Homelea.’

Agnes shook her head slowly. ‘Oh, Lily,’ she muttered.

‘What did Charles say? Did you see him?’

She nodded. ‘He called in briefly after he’d been to the hospital. Dr Montgomery is doing a full assessment today but he’s pretty certain that it is Alzheimer’s. He said he hoped he could settle her and she’d be able to move to one of the nursing homes who specialise in it…care of the mentally frail he called it.’ She swallowed before carrying on.

‘Charles mentioned the business of me being next of kin too but Dr Montgomery said it would confuse the records and I was welcome to visit at any time. He didn’t see any need to complicate matters.’

‘So we’re going to have to find everything out from Charles?’

‘Yes.’

‘Agnes, if anything happens to Lily, who inherits her estate?’

She blinked in surprise. ‘Charles, there’s no one else. Why?’

‘It’s probably irrelevant but I just wondered if Lily had amended her will recently, made any changes.’

‘Not that I know of. I don’t understand…’ Her face creased deep with confusion.

‘Well, I’m trying to consider every possible angle. If there’s been any deliberate maltreatment of Lily we need to think about motives. Who’d want to make her ill, why? What benefit could there be? If someone stood to gain financially…’

Agnes stared at me with a look of incredulity. It did sound ridiculous. She held up her hand. ‘Sal, please don’t imagine that I think someone is deliberately mistreating Lily. I only thought there might have been some error of judgement, a mistake, and that people are covering it up. That’s why I want you to check the tablets.’

‘I’ve organised that. It’ll be a few days before we get the results.’

‘Charles was quite shocked at the change in her,’ she said. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’

‘You could visit her for a start.’ It came out more sharply than I intended.

‘But I…’ she was flustered, her hand shook, sought out the brooch on her cardigan, ‘I had flu,’ she protested.

‘And before that it was the chiropodist,’ I retorted.

There was an uncomfortable silence. I let it stretch while I curbed my anger. When I spoke I kept my tone deliberately neutral.

‘I know about Nora.’

‘Nora?’

‘Don’t, Agnes. Lily told me. Nora, your sister. She ended up in Kingsfield.’

She pressed her hand up to her mouth and struggled to stop the shaking. ‘What did she tell you?’

‘Not much more than that, really. That Nora was Nora Donlan, she’d been sent to Kingsfield. She gave me the impression it’d been a well-kept secret. No one ever talked about it.’

‘I can’t, excuse me.’ Agnes left the room.

I sat in the quiet and listened to the chirrups from sparrows outside, the occasional puttering sound from the fire. My mouth was dry now. I’d have liked to have got a drink but I didn’t dare move and risk intruding on Agnes.

Some time later she came back. Her face was taut and ashen. She clutched a large white hanky but her eyes were dry. She lowered herself into the chair.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘That’s why you’ve not been to see Lily?’

She nodded in assent.

‘Is Nora still there?’ I asked.

‘No.’ She drew a couple of breaths, releasing the air slowly with a shuddering sound. ‘No,’ she repeated, ‘Nora’s dead. It was a long time ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. The words or perhaps the wobbly note in my own voice served to trigger her tears. Agnes stayed where she was, weeping quietly, almost sedately. She leant forward, buried her face in the hanky. Tears sprang to my own eyes, stinging. I sniffed them back. I went and knelt at her side. Put my arm around her shoulders. She didn’t shrug me off. I didn’t speak. Agnes wept. At last, taking a couple of deep breaths, she straightened up. I slid my arm away. She turned her head to face me.

‘It’s more than sixty years ago,’ she said, ‘sixty years, never mentioned.’