Emma Page - Scent of Death

Among the hoaxers and the nutters were several genuine calls; the more important of these the Chief intended to deal with himself. His first call, a little after eight on Monday morning, was on a Mrs Huband, the landlady with whom Joanne Mowbray had lodged during her brief stay in Cannonbridge; Mrs Huband lived in a terrace close to the railway station.

She was outside, perched on a stepladder, busily cleaning her windows, when they arrived. A plump, motherly-looking woman in late middle age, greying hair twisted into a bun; her print overall was carefully laundered. She abandoned her bucket and wash-leather and took the two men into her spotlessly clean little house.

‘I was that upset when I heard it over the radio,’ she told the Chief, her eyes filled with distress. ‘I’d often wondered how Joanne had got on, if she’d managed to find her sister.’

She had had no other lodger during the few days Joanne had stayed with her. ‘She found it quite comfortable here, and quite convenient, but she couldn’t afford to stay more than a few days.’ She looked earnestly up at him. ‘It’s not that I charge a lot, I wouldn’t want you to think that, but it’s all I have to live on, that and the widow’s pension.’ She pressed her hands together. ‘Anyway, she said she had to be careful with her money, so I told her about the girls’ hostel. I advised her to go along there and see the Warden.’ The hostel was an old-established concern in a residential quarter of Cannonbridge, run by a charitable trust.

Kelsey asked if she knew what success Joanne had had in her enquiries about her sister.

‘At first she was very pleased with what she’d been able to find out,’ Mrs Huband said. ‘She thought she was making good progress.’ She’d been along to two secretarial agencies Helen had worked for and she’d made contact with other people who had known Helen or employed her services. ‘But on the Wednesday morning I could see she was looking a bit down in the mouth. It seemed that everyone she’d come across who’d known Helen had known her some time ago, she hadn’t been able to find anyone who’d known her recently. She was beginning to think Helen must have left this area. She was in two minds about staying on in Cannonbridge at all, she thought she could be wasting her time – and her money. Perhaps she should give up and go back to Martleigh. It depended what she found out that day.’

Joanne had been along to the hostel on the Tuesday afternoon to explain her position. The Warden had told her she could have a bed there any night as long as she let them know before seven-thirty in the evening; if it was later than that, then she would have to take her chance. ‘So she squared up with me on the Wednesday morning,’ Mrs Huband said. ‘She told me she’d call back for her things about four o’clock. I said not to be later than four because I had to go out – I help at the Darby and Joan club on Wednesdays.’ She drew a sighing breath. ‘She was a nice girl, not pushy or inconsiderate, though she was very determined.’

‘Was she back by four?’

‘Yes, she came in about ten to.’

‘Did you speak to her?’

‘I didn’t have much time, I had to rush off. I told her to make herself a cup of tea, and to be sure to drop the latch when she left. She was the sort you could go off and leave in the house without worrying about what she might get up to. She was as honest as the day. You can always tell.’

‘Did she tell you how she’d got on that day? If she’d decided what she was going to do?’

‘I asked her if she’d had any luck. She just said: Nothing special. She still hadn’t made up her mind about going back to Martleigh that evening. She said she had another two or three leads to follow up, she’d be going after them in the next hour or two, then she’d make up her mind.’

‘How had she done her hair that day?’

She looked startled at the sudden switch. ‘The same as every other day, just long and straight.’

‘Did she ever wear anything in her hair? A ribbon or a comb, perhaps?’ Caught up in the tresses of Joanne’s long dark hair was a large decorative hairslide with the catch open. The slide was of heavy quality polystyrene, white veined with green; it had a fancy curved top

Mrs Huband shook her head. ‘I never saw her wear anything in her hair.’

‘What time did you get back home that Wednesday evening?’

‘About ten o’clock. She’d taken all her things – she only had the one bag with her, a duffel-bag. She’d left everything nice and tidy, the house properly locked up.’

When they left Mrs Huband’s they went straight along to the hostel but the Warden could tell them nothing further. Helen Mowbray had never had any contact with the hostel and Joanne had neither shown up again or phoned, after her visit on the Tuesday afternoon. Nor had she mentioned, during that visit, the names of any contacts she hoped to see the following day.

They called next on a Miss Gallimore who had phoned the station to say that Helen Mowbray had at one time lodged with her. Miss Gallimore was an old woman, white-haired and fresh-complexioned, with an air of having seen better days; she lived in a run-of-the-mill red-brick semi in a side street not far from the centre of town. She took them into a sitting room with a great many faded family photographs in ornate old frames ranged on top of the piano and along the mantelshelf.

Helen had come to lodge with her almost exactly four years ago, when she had first come to Cannonbridge. She had been the sole lodger; Miss Gallimore never took more than one girl at a time. Helen had stayed about a year; thirteen months, to be precise. She had been a very satisfactory lodger, always paying promptly, clean and tidy, pleasant and polite, quiet and hard-working.

Miss Gallimore’s recollection was that Helen had worked for agencies when she first came to lodge with her, then she had had one or two spells of working for a particular employer, with some freelancing in between. She was able to give them the names of two employers: the Cannonbridge branch of Wyatt Fashions, and Fletcher’s Plastics, on the industrial estate.

Kelsey asked her if Helen had had any men friends. Yes, she had, that is, she had gone out sometimes in the evenings or at weekends and Miss Gallimore had assumed it was with some man or other. She had never brought anyone to the house, had never mentioned anyone. ‘I didn’t ask her personal questions,’ Miss Gallimore said. ‘It’s never been my way, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have welcomed it. She wasn’t a chatty girl.’

Why had Helen decided to leave after thirteen months?

‘We didn’t have any disagreement or anything like that. She was beginning to do quite well in her little business and she felt she could afford a place of her own. She told me she’d seen a furnished flat she liked.’ Miss Gallimore hadn’t seen Helen again after she left. ‘I can give you the address of the flat,’ she added, ‘but it’s not much use your going round there. The house has been pulled down, they’ve put up some flats there. You probably know the place – Holmwood, the house was called, on the Tappenhall Road. It had a big garden.’

Yes, Kelsey did know the place, on the southern tip of Cannonbridge. An Edwardian house had stood there until a couple of years ago. The site was occupied now by sheltered-accommodation units for the elderly.

He asked if Joanne had contacted Miss Gallimore. Yes, she had called at the house on a Monday afternoon at the end of February; she had been given the address by the Cannonbridge Secretarial Agency. Miss Gallimore had told her what she had just told the Chief. Joanne had said nothing to her about any discoveries she had made or any leads she intended following.