Three Little Maids(71)

‘I told him his mother would want him to eat. I didn’t know how else to encourage him. Then he asked to see her. He was upset. He was talking a lot about Maureen and Jodie. He cried, Mr. Turner. He didn’t murder them girls like you lot are saying he did. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

Kent sighed this was getting them nowhere. But she had talked about his mother. ‘What did he actually say when you mentioned his mother?’

‘He got excited. I don’t want to talk about it anymore,’ she said tearfully and sat down heavily on a chair. ‘You’ve got to go out and catch the wicked man who killed those girls. And let my Raymond come home.’

‘He could have done it to attract attention from his mother.’

She burst into tears. They waited till she was able to speak. She lifted her agonized face ‘No, he didn’t. He kept asking for her, Mr. Turner. I had to tell him that his mother died. An’ he went crazy.’

Turner looked at Kent. ‘My daughter, Pammie, died when he was small. She was pregnant again... I was angry. I didn’t know what to do about her. Didn’t know who the father was. She left home. Went to London. And I was told by the police later she’d died from a backstreet abortion. I couldn’t tell the boy that, could I?’ She wept into her cologne soaked handkerchief.

‘Pretty useless to ask her anything else, guv. She’s tired out. She’s said enough, I think.’

‘Sister?’ Kent approached the nurse coming out of the room. ‘How long will it be before the young man is able to speak to us?’

‘We want to keep him sedated and calm for the time being. To give him a chance to recover, Inspector.’

Kent was uneasy. How were they going to sort all this out. They could only keep him for a while longer. They had no definite proof to hold him with. There were only the prints in the van to offer as evidence. But they might not stand up in court.





55




It was Viviane’s day on the library van. She was glad to do it. It took her out of town and the library. And away from the library where worries crowded in on her. Where she was sure to see someone who reminded her only too easily of the crimes that had taken place.

And the day before, she’d recalled it was Jon’s birthday coming up on the weekend. Perhaps he didn’t like them to be numbered and remembered. But he needed something to cheer him up. That was for sure. The previous week she’d spotted a Toby Jug sitting on a top shelf in a small antique shop in Pealinghurst where she making a call that morning. It was just an idea. But anything that pleased him was worth a try.

It was busy morning. The regulars were waiting for her when the mobile library pulled in on the village green. All those that she knew well since she had been doing it.

The two middle-aged Chauncey brothers had varied views on reading matter. Both were pig farmers. Cedric enjoyed books on sports of all kinds. Cricket and cricketers were his favourite brain fodder. And biographies of famous actors, film stars when he could find any he hadn’t already read. Silas, his twin, read anything to do with sea travel, underwater wrecks and true crime. The fact that their mother, Jessica, kept an matriarchal eye on her two boys and the running of the farm, might have something to with their unmarried state and their reading, Viviane thought, as they were the first up the steps and came to her counter together.

Closely followed by Margaret Vincent, a sweet old lady with a basketful of crime novels. At eighty two, it was the mysteries that caught her interest most. Agatha Christie, Patricia Cornwall, Sue Grafton and Ruth Rendall were some of her favorites. But for her elderly son Barney, a widower and retired chemist, only the Medical Harlequin Mills and Boon romantic fiction would do.

‘I do hope you can find something new, amongst these, Mr. Vincent. You’ve read so many of the paperbacks we have on our shelves. I’ve tried to sort some out for you from the Central library and brought them with me. Can you remember what you’ve already read? I know that Barbara Neels is your favourite.’

‘Thank you so much, Mrs Sherlborne, for taking so much trouble. I often wish that I could enjoy what Mother reads. But crime’s not my cup of tea. Reading about murders and far worse.’ He shuddered for effect and smiled.

‘Yes,’ said Viviane watching Mrs Vincent making her way carefully over to the crime shelves. ‘I don’t think I could fancy them myself not at the moment.’

‘Oh, yes, of course those dreadful murders in Harcombe. I still can’t believe it’s happening. It doesn’t seem real to us living out here. I put on the local news and the TV and it’s there on the screen every day. Mother will listen to it. She laps it up. How can you possibly stand it? I’m glad I brought Mother to live here. Although we’re still thought of as newcomers even after twenty years at The Lilacs,’ he said with a chuckle.