Martin Edwards - The Frozen Shroud

‘How did Roland take that?’

‘Her onslaught sent him into a tailspin. He was losing the woman he loved, and a comfortable, well-paid job into the bargain. Not only had he never had any luck getting into Gertrude’s knickers, she’d been two-timing him with the master of the house. There was no hope of winning her back. Soon she would be out of reach in every possible respect. Her dream was to return to Edinburgh as a lady of leisure, and Hodgkinson had promised to make it come true.’

Hannah pursed her lips. ‘Did Roland decide to stop them?’

‘Nothing so decisive. He crumpled into a heap. He actually wrote in his diary that evening that it was the last entry he would ever make. Not true, as things turned out — he said it in the heat of the moment — but six weeks passed before he picked up his pen again. By then, he’d left Ravenbank, and was trying to make sense of what had happened. So his account of Gertrude’s death and its aftermath weren’t contemporaneous.’

‘Gertrude was the love of his life, he can be forgiven for crumpling.’

Terri’s face came into Hannah’s mind; she’d come close to falling apart herself after her friend’s death. Roland Jones was unaccustomed to the cruelty of crime, and Gertrude’s betrayal of him, and subsequent murder, must have felt too much to bear.

‘Presumably that’s why he never married in later years. It’s abundantly clear from everything I’ve read that he could never have harmed her.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘He was a gentle, introspective man. Violence horrified him. Dorothy was obviously desperate for him to intervene somehow, that’s why she confided in him, but from her point of view, he proved a broken reed. Later that day, she sought him out, and he had to admit she was right. Gertrude had Hodgkinson in her clutches, and wasn’t letting go. Dorothy became hysterical, and beat him with her own little fists. Of course he sympathised, he was on her side, but he had to be firm. There was nothing either of them could do.’

‘Except that somebody did … do something.’

‘Yes. This was Hallowe’en, but the occupants of Ravenbank Hall weren’t in the mood to party. The weather was bitterly cold, and Roland went to bed early, but he was so stressed, he hardly got a wink of sleep. Next morning, he was greeted with the news that Gertrude’s body had just been found, covered with the Frozen Shroud. He wrote afterwards that the whole day was a blur. The police were called, the Hall was in uproar. And then Hodgkinson went to Letty’s room, and discovered that she’d committed suicide.’

‘There’s no doubt it was suicide?’

‘None. According to Roland, she did leave a note, written in her own shaky hand. Just five little words.’ He paused. ‘“I had to do it.”’

Hannah considered. ‘Ambiguous.’

‘Precisely. Those five words offered a narrative to suit the survivors. Letty had killed Gertrude out of jealousy, and for fear of what would happen if Clifford threw her and Dorothy onto the scrapheap.’

‘But?’

‘Roland was confined to bed with a fever for a week after the two deaths. Nerve-related, I guess. As soon as he was fit enough, he had to pack his bags and leave. Over time, he began to put pieces together. On Hallowe’en, because he couldn’t sleep, he’d got up just before midnight, and gone downstairs to make himself a drink. From the window, he glimpsed a slight figure wrapped in a heavy coat and scarf, sneaking out of the house. The figure stayed under the trees, skirting the open drive, but heading for Ravenbank Lane.’

‘Gertrude, off to meet Hodgkinson?’

As she spoke, instinct told her she was on the wrong track. So did the look on Daniel’s face.

‘Dorothy, on her way to kill Gertrude.’

For a moment, Hannah was lost for words. He grinned. ‘Okay, let me get the coffees.’

When he returned from the counter with two steaming cups, Hannah said, ‘Call myself a detective? I should have seen that coming.’

He didn’t patronise her by arguing. ‘Roland didn’t recognise Dorothy at first, but the more he mulled it over, the more convinced he became that he’d seen his pupil, setting out to murder her father’s mistress. And she was carrying something. Roland’s theory was that it was a large stone, wrapped in a blanket.’

‘Right.’ Hannah exhaled. ‘The murder weapon and the Frozen Shroud.’

‘Once his suspicion focused on the girl, everything made sense. In particular, Letty’s note. Of course, in her mentally and emotionally fragile state, she felt she had to do it. She had to kill herself and take the blame for Gertrude’s murder, because otherwise her daughter’s guilt would be discovered.’

‘Why did Letty suspect her own daughter of murdering a servant?’

‘Letty knew Dorothy better than anyone, much more than doting Daddy. She had an idea what the kid was capable of. She was also an insomniac. The doctor had prescribed heavy duty sleeping pills, but she kept refusing to take them. Roland suspected that she’d looked outside and spotted Dorothy, just as he’d done. He also wondered if Dorothy had said something to her mother that gave the game away.’

‘I hate to be a damp squib, but aren’t there holes in this theory? How did Dorothy lure Gertrude out onto Ravenbank Lane?’

‘She didn’t. Gertrude was due to head for Beck Cottage that night, as usual, for her rendezvous with Hodgkinson. But Hodgkinson was out for the count. When news came that Gertrude’s body had been found, he had to be roused from a deep sleep, though he was usually an early riser. Roland reckoned Dorothy slipped some of her mother’s sleeping pills into her father’s cocoa. Having knocked him out, the coast was clear for her to kill the housemaid.’

‘Dorothy was only a little girl.’

‘Five years younger than Gertrude, but fit and strong. Her obituary mentioned she was a keen mountaineer. Polio had withered Gertrude’s right arm, and if she was attacked out of the blue, she couldn’t have defended herself.’

‘But the brutality of the murder …’

‘Children are as capable of hate as any adult. Dorothy battered Gertrude’s face with the stone, and then she draped the blanket over the bloody mess. My guess is that the enormity of her crime struck her as soon as she took a look at what she had done, and she couldn’t bear the sight of it. Hence the shroud.’

‘Why in God’s name did Roland keep his mouth shut?’

‘He recorded his agonies in the diary. Harrowing to read, but also frustrating. Poor Roland made Hamlet look decisive. To be fair, he had no corroborative evidence. It was all guesswork, and he baulked at accusing a child of a brutal murder when everyone blamed it on her mother. Besides, he felt personal responsibility. When he told Dorothy what Gertrude had said to him, he robbed her of the last hope that her family could remain intact. She blamed Gertrude, not her father. I suppose she couldn’t face the thought that he was prepared to abandon her for someone she regarded as a trollop. Roland took his duties seriously. He was in loco parentis , and he’d failed to understand the extent of Dorothy’s desperation. If he spoke out, he ran the risk of making a catastrophic situation even worse.’

Hannah said slowly, ‘And when the war broke out, he joined up, reckless as to whether he lived or died.’

‘Correct. Afterwards he forged a new life as an educator. Trying to atone? I dunno, I need to read the rest of the diaries. It wasn’t until he was dying that he met Dorothy again.’

‘When they had the exchange that Miriam Park overheard.’

‘Hence the codicil to his will. He couldn’t expose Dorothy at that late stage, and probably he didn’t want to. She acknowledged her guilt to him, if only tacitly. Nor did he want the truth to be buried forever. He was dying, and it mattered little to him whether the story came out in five years or fifty. He settled for leaving it to be dug up by a researcher who shared his academic interests, and had the time and inclination to wade through his journals.’