“Yes, I did. I saw some of it from the bottom of the garden, but I did run round quickly to see if I could help.”
“Did you by any chance see a taxi leaving the scene?”
“No, no taxi. There was only one vehicle going by at twice its usual speed!”
“What d’you mean, Joan?” Lois said urgently.
“Well, believe it or not, I saw the tail end of a hearse! A great long black thing, and it shot off in the Tresham direction. Funny, that.”
Fifty-five
Inspector Cowgill arrived on time next day, and Lois saw his car drawing up. She rushed to the door, but collided with Gran coming at speed from the kitchen.
“You win,” said Lois, and retired to her office.
Gran straightened herself up, and then opened the door. “Good afternoon, Inspector, can I help you? My daughter’s rather busy at the moment.”
“She’s expecting me, Mrs Weedon,” said Cowgill, with his most charming smile. “I am sure she will spare me a few minutes.”
“Oh, very well. You’d better come in.”
At this point, Lois came out and said that Inspector Cowgill had made an appointment with her, and they were not to be disturbed. Gran sniffed, and said in that case, they would probably want cups of tea, unless Lois called that an interruption. Lois resisted a temptation to give her mother a sharp response, and eventually she and Cowgill were left alone.
“So how are you feeling today?” he asked, though he could see from her smile that she was her old self.
“Fine, and you?”
“Haven’t had time to ask myself!” he said. “We’ve had a lot of thinking and discussion. Going back to Pettison’s funeral, what did you think of it? Not bad, I thought, under the circumstances.”
“Yep. I thought Betsy Brierley was very dignified, until she snapped in the café.”
“Snapped? I saw her stalking off.”
“Yeah, it was something I said, about giving him a good send-off. She must have loved him, I reckon, Hunter. Very sad, really.”
“Mm, well, not many would agree with you. Betsy is considered to be hard as nails. Still, no reason why she should not mourn him. She’ll get over it, one way or another. Now,” he continued, “we’ve trawled all round the county, but found first of all that there are very few adapted taxis, and second, they were all either being repaired, or in use by reputable folk unconnected with our enquiry. In other words, we’ve drawn a blank, so far.”
“Oh dear. Well, this may mean nothing, but I went round to Gran’s friend Joan, who lives in Blackberry Gardens, and asked her if she had spotted a taxi leaving that night. She said no, and then she laughed and said that on her way round to see if she could help at the shop, she saw a hearse—yes, a hearse!—vanishing at speed. It wasn’t until now, before you came, that it dawned on me that it could have had something to do with Pettison.”
Cowgill said nothing for a few minutes. Then he opened his briefcase and withdrew a small plastic bag, securely sealed, and put it down in front of her.
“Ever seen this before?” he said.
“It’s a padlock,” said Lois flatly. “And there’s a small key in the keyhole.”
“Correct,” said Cowgill. “The padlock has been taken from the pigsty at the back of Josie’s shop.”
“And the key?”
“Brought in by Betsy Brierley. She found it in the pocket of Ted’s black undertaker’s coat. It has been checked over thoroughly, and it is definitely the one.”
“Oh my God! What did she say when she brought it in?”
“Not very much. She was very upset, but tried to explain that she had to decide between loyalty to Pettison or to Ted.”
“And Pettison won?”
Cowgill nodded.
“But why would Ted have wanted to do such a terrible thing? He’d lived alongside Pettison for long enough. They must have had a sort of tolerance of each other?”
“Not necessarily. Ted could have been like a simmering kettle all these years, and suddenly boiled over.”
“Boiled dry, more like,” said Lois, unimpressed. “But kettle or no kettle, he had put up with a lot, including being mocked by Pettison. Poor sod, he must have suffered. I suppose he could have walked out on Betsy, but maybe he loved her. Loves her, I should say. He started as her pimp, so I’m told, but they’ve lived together for years, and she’s not unattractive. So does he think he’s got away with it? What are you going to do?”
“Pull him in for interview, of course. But first, I hear Mrs Weedon approaching with a tea tray, so you and I can exchange sweet nothings for a short while longer.”