All Passion Spent, Bergotte [e book reader online .txt] 📗

meet. Rita was not going to make it on time though and she confessed as much to Paul. He asked her to get there as soon as she could and rang off. Rita made her excuses to Sally and promptly left. 134
Meanwhile, Bert Harper and Harry were busy in Sydney Gardens. They were on overtime, mending the fence that had been left over since Monday. It was as Bert told the police, a bit rickety and needed seeing to. As they put in new posts and panels Bert whistled softly under his breath, then burst out into song, “T’was on the fifth of August, the weather being fair, unto Brigg Fair I did repair for love I was inclined.”
Michael Fellingham arrived at the family conference with Isabella. While they all waited for Rita to come, Isabella went to the kitchen to make coffee. Michael followed her. He had brought a flyer with him from college, which he now withdrew from a trouser pocket, in a rather crumpled state. He handed it to her without a word.


She looked at it and smiled. She was thinking of days in the past, when she had gone to discos on a weekly basis, with not a care in the world. And now there was all this trouble in the family, and the funeral, which she had arranged, almost single-handedly, to take place on Monday. “Would you be free to go with me?” he whispered. He stood behind her as she reached into a cupboard for coffee cups. “I will make myself free. I’ll pick you up at about ten past seven. Okay?” “Yes,” he said, turning on his heel and returning to the living room.

The Bristol Paddington train pulled into the station at 2.30. Sam got off and ran down the stairs from the platform at Bath Spa, where Tommy Mattheson was waiting in the station forecourt. He kissed her passionately and held her tight. “Thanks for coming over,” he said. “You’re in a lot of trouble,” she replied. “I know, let’s go this way,” pointing in the direction he wanted them to take. He took her by the hand and led her through the tunnel under the railway lines and along the footbridge over the green, sluggish River Avon. They came down on the other side and walked towards the point where the canal joins the river. When they reached the lock gate they found a seat. Tommy told Sam that he was due in court the following week, on Thursday. She wanted him to get back on his feet, as she put it, but that would be very difficult with a criminal record. She wanted him to finish his ‘A’ levels, get some qualifications. Impossible, he thought. She suggested he study on his own, make use of the library, with its internet access, then put himself in for the exams. “It might work,” he said, “but why are you so keen on helping me?” “Because,” she replied, simply, “I love you.”

The doorbell rang. Paul went towards the door to answer it. He said to the others, “That will be Rita.” “So,” said Bella, “she’s turned up at last.” Paul ignored her unkind remark, went into the hall and opened the door. He greeted Rita. She stood on the doormat in the hallway and took off her coat. Paul noticed that her coat was exactly the same as Bella’s, but he mad no comment about it. Instead, he said softly, “I overheard my brother inviting your sister to a college disco tonight. He’d brought a flyer with him and gave it to her.” She looked impassively at Paul and after a few moments hesitation, she replied defiantly, “I’ve left him, I don’t live with him any more. I’m past caring. It doesn’t bother me what he does.” She pushed past her brother-in-law and strode into the living room to join the others.

At 2.45 p.m. Mrs Vera Phelps was called upon by her good friend and neighbour Dolly Payne, a sprightly eighty year old who had called round on the pretext of wanting to borrow an egg. She wanted to know if there was any more news of the suspicious death. “Only what has been in the paper,” Vera told her. “I think it’s murder,” replied Dolly. “You don’t expect that kind of thing in this neighbourhood, do you?”
Detective Sergeant Anna Rossi was standing outside the brass plated door of Chief Superintendent Tresillian, consulting her watch. On the stroke of 3.00 p.m. she knocked hesitatingly. On hearing the monosyllable “Come!” emanating from within, entered. “Good afternoon, sir,” she said, “you wanted to see me?” “Ah, Detective Sergeant, nothing to worry about, take a seat, my dear.” Anna did as she was bidden, though rather resenting the appellation ‘my dear’. “How are you getting on with Peter Gerrard?” “Very well,” she replied, trying to fathom out whether there was any ulterior motive for Tresillian’s invitation to meet him. “Good, I’m glad to hear it. What progress are you making with the Laura Fellingham case?” Anna told him that they had interviewed everybody connected with the case. Also, they had eliminated two suspects, the driver of the car and the young man who removed Mrs Fellingham from the road and carried her into Sydney Gardens. Tresillian wondered whether they had any more suspects. “Not at this stage, no sir,” said Anna. The Chief Superintendent thanked her for coming to see him and she went on her way.

Mrs Sandra Smith looked at the clock on her mantelpiece, as it started to strike three o’clock. She was busy talking to Mary, an elderly widow, next door neighbour and fellow churchgoer and the Closes, also neighbours. She had decided on a little tea party for them all. They sat together in her tiny front room, a large teapot standing proudly on a mat in the centre of a glass topped coffee table. Cups and saucers had been laid out neatly in front of each guest. There was a small sugar bowl, an elegant milk jug and an equally elegant slops bowl, in addition to a stainless steel tea strainer standing in its own receptacle. A large fruitcake lay waiting on the sideboard on a chintzy cake stand. “Well,” said Mr Close, “what’s all the gossip, then?” “This murder, I should think,” returned his wife, with a twinkle in her eye. “What do you know about it, Sandra?” piped up Mary from her armchair. “Well, this I can tell you,” Sandra replied, “Isabella had fallen out with her mother. They had a big argument the other week over Mr Michael.” “He’s very clever, but not at all practical,” interjected Mary, apropos of nothing in particular. “He was a chorister years ago, at the church in Claverton, as I remember,” contributed Mr Close “… sang in the Diocesan Festival at Wells Cathedral, one year.” “Quite musical, he was,” said Mrs Close.

Meanwhile, the Fellingham family sat round their mother’s dining-room table. Isabella told them of the funeral arrangements she had made for the following Monday. She showed them a copy of the service she had had printed and the hymns she had chosen. Michael observed that service was in ‘old English’. “That’s what she would have wanted,” responded Bella. “How do you know? Did she tell you that’s what she wanted?” sneered Rita. “We did discuss it some time ago, after our step-father died. She wrote it all down. She wanted traditional language.” Isabella went to the bureau and took a sheet of paper from the top drawer. She handed it to her sister, who looked at the neat hand written document, and then gave it back, without comment.” “Thank you for organising it all,” said Michael.
The same afternoon, just after three o’clock, Gerrard arrived in Weston village, parked his car outside a neat semi-detached house and rang the bell. A pretty young woman in her early twenties answered it, neatly dressed in black jeans and a white, low-cut tee-shirt. She bent down to pick up a black cat that was taking advantage of entering through the newly opened front door, exposing a large pair of breasts, as she did so. Gerrard noticed, he couldn’t help noticing that the girl, for so she seemed to him, was wearing nothing under her shirt. “Good afternoon… Miss Sally Stoneham?” “Yes.” “Chief Inspector Gerrard, police,” he said, showing his warrant card. “May I have a word with you, please?” “Yes, please come inside.” He followed Miss Stoneham into her front room, where she motioned to him to sit down in an armchair in the bay window. He looked round the room and saw that it was quite comfortably furnished. He wondered how she could afford it on a nurse’s pay. The carpet was thick and unworn, the curtains lined and heavy. A bookcase, with the contents arranged neatly on the shelves, stood in a corner, near him. He glanced at the titles; there was some fiction and some poetry but mostly they were medical books. He fixed his attention on the girl now sitting opposite him “It’s about your friend and work colleague, Margherita Fellingham?” he began and then paused to draw breath. “What is she like, your friend?” asked Gerrard, laying heavy stress on the word friend, by repeating it. “Very sensible, rather emotional. A good nurse.” “Any odd behaviour?” “Yes, I must admit… there are times when she acts strangely. For example, she has got it into her head that her mother dislikes, or rather, I should say, disliked her. Rita wouldn’t speak to her on the phone. She would pretend that she wasn’t in or if I answered the phone would tell me to say that she wasn’t available to take the call.” Gerrard asked her if there was anything else that she could call to mind. Sally told him of Rita’s desire to be a doctor, not a nurse, but having no support from her parents. “But,” she said, “she just isn’t bright enough. She would never have made it to med. school. She must know that.”

At about the same time that Gerrard was talking to Sally, Albert Harper and Harry were sitting in the tool shed. They had finished their work on the fence and cleaned their tools. Harry said, “They’ve let that Tommy Mattheson bloke go free. In the local rag, here somewhere.” He rummaged around the shed and eventually found a torn and tattered newspaper. “Here it is.” He read the short article out loud.
Police today released from custody, Mr Thomas Mattheson, the 19 year old homeless vagrant, who was thought to have murdered Mrs Laura Fellingham, in Sydney Gardens, early on Saturday evening, October 21. The murdered woman had been knocked down by Mr Philip Dickinson, 38, a car salesman in a ‘hit & run’ car accident whilst crossing the main road outside the gardens. After suffering serious but not fatal injuries, Mrs Fellingham was carried by Mr Mattheson into Sydney Gardens, where she was brutally stabbed with a nail file or similar object. After an extensive search of the area, police have admitted that the murder waepon has not been found. Chief Inspector Gerrard of Bath CID said that there was no reason to charge Mr Mattheson with the murder. He appealed for any witnesses to come forward immediately. “It’s my opinion he done it,” said Harry. “He just panicked and stuck her with the nail file.”
The Fellinghams were in deep and earnest conversation. “By the way,” said Paul, “there’s a report of the inquest findings in today’s Chronicle. He picked up the newspaper he had brought with him and proceeded to read it out. ‘At an inquest at Bath Magistrates Court the coroner yesterday recorded a verdict of unlawful killing over the death of Mrs Laura Fellingham. Mrs Fellingham's body