The Distant Dead, Lesley Thomson [simple e reader .TXT] 📗

wall and the bed. Heaving himself up, he passed Cotton a small box.

‘I was expecting diamonds.’ Cotton whistled at what looked like a curtain ring nestling on a cushion of deep blue silk. ‘Humboldt and Baxter’s Jewellers have expanded to hardware. OK, it’s time for a confab with brother Vernon.’

He closed Maple’s bedroom door after Shepherd and went downstairs. Vernon Greenhill was sitting on a chair by the window, William asleep on his lap. Cotton felt warmer towards Vernon.

‘We think there was a man,’ Cotton told them.

‘I said that. Those times she said she was round with Ida.’ Keith rounded on his wife. ‘Ida never saw her. I asked her.’

‘I said leave it to me.’ Evelyn rounded on her husband.

‘You never did anything. If we’d had it out with her…’ Keith Greenhill knew when to stop, Cotton was pleased to see.

‘It’s no one’s fault,’ Cotton said.

‘We nearly lost her when she was carrying him, I couldn’t let her go again or she would have been on the street.’ Evelyn went and took William from Vernon.

‘You were too soft on her.’ Vernon pulled at the collar of his shirt. ‘If you’d come clean when he was born, we’d know where we were. I’m sick of telling porkies every time I leave the house.’

‘What porkies?’ Cotton asked.

‘William’s passed off as theirs. Maple was his big sister. Only Maple let him call her Mummy on the quiet. You never stopped her.’

Cotton knew Maple having a child out of wedlock would have been a blow to what was a respectable family living in a respectable street. They had taken the boy into the family – it took courage. Cotton had recently attended two failed abortion deaths, one in a smart flat on the river, the other a backstreet affair not far from his home. Since the war, like murder and stealing from the dead, abortions had become more common. It was harder for wives to work the timings to fit when their men had been home on leave. Women like Maple who didn’t want to lose freedom or be shamed out of town.

‘If you’d had it out with her, mother to daughter…’ Keith said.

‘I did ask how she got that coat, it looked fearfully dear,’ Evelyn said. ‘She palmed me off saying she’d got a rise. I had a word with that pecky-mouthed manager of hers and he said he’d give her a raise when she bucked up her ways.’

‘You never should have gone to him,’ Vernon blazed. ‘That’s her business.’

‘Buck her ways up how?’ Cotton asked.

‘He claimed she got in late in the mornings and took long dinner breaks. He did say she’d kept her job because when she did the work it was of the highest standard.’ Evelyn said again, ‘Maple put everything into her baby.’

‘She wasn’t a prostitute,’ Vernon said, as if someone had just said Maple was.

‘Can any of you can shed light on how Maple came by this?’ Cotton opened the little box.

‘She was engaged,’ Vernon blurted then looked horrified.

‘You knew that and never said?’ his mother shrieked at him. William woke up and started crying. Evelyn rocked him violently. ‘There, there, lamb, there, there.’

‘Maple made me promise.’ Vernon looked miserable.

‘Who was he?’ It was grey outside, but for Cotton it was as if the sun shone. If he could find Maple’s killer, one day he’d retire happy. Was he close? Then he recalled what he’d told Shepherd: if Vernon knew the man’s name the boy would have been gone by now and someone wouldn’t have been safe.

‘I don’t know.’ Vernon looked away.

‘You sister’s dead, Vernon, she has no secrets to keep.’ Seeing the boy hang his head between his knees, Cotton softened. ‘You can help her now by telling us what you do know.’

‘If I knew, think I would be answering your stupid questions? I’d have it out with him.’ Vernon scrubbed at the back of his head and sat up.

Quite so.

‘Leave that to the police,’ Constable Shepherd sniffed importantly.

‘Did Maple talk about him? Say why she liked him? Anything she said could give us a clue to who he is.’

‘She said I’d like him, that’s all. That we liked the same things.’

‘What things?’ Evelyn had got William off to sleep again. ‘What things did she say you both liked?’

‘I can’t remember.’ Blank-faced, Vernon stared at the grate, the fire long burnt out.

‘What do you like doing?’ Cotton asked.

‘The usual.’ Vernon spun the wheels on William’s engine. ‘Me and Mary go dancing, follow the dogs at White City.’

‘You and Mary are saving for a house, what are you doing frittering away cash?’ Keith scowled. Cotton knew that in the face of tragedy, people stuck to the everyday.

‘What am I meant to say? He asked me,’ Vernon said. ‘When I won fourteen and three on Highland Rum last year, I didn’t hear you complain.’

‘Did Maple say this man liked greyhound racing?’ Hopeless. Cotton knew there were ninety thousand at the White City stadium for the Derby. Needle and haystack was the story of his life.

‘Maple’s murdered and you’re on about dog-racing?’ Evelyn kissed the sleeping boy on the forehead. William looked so peaceful, but Cotton knew that soon enough he’d miss his mum. Or his ‘big sister’.

‘It’s fake,’ Keith Greenhill said. ‘That ring. Two a penny in Shepherd’s Bush market.’

‘Keith’s dad was a pawnbroker.’ Evelyn caught her husband’s look. ‘Well, he was.’

‘Anyone can see that’s cheap tat. It certainly wasn’t purchased at this jeweller.’ Keith handed the box back to Cotton. ‘He was having my daughter on.’ He clenched a fist.

‘Maple knew that, you think she’s stupid? She didn’t care,’ Vernon spat out. ‘It was temporary, until he could take her to choose her own, she said.’

‘What was stopping him?’ Evelyn’s head snapped up. ‘You knew?’

‘He was married, of course.’ Keith shook his head. ‘That posh box will have had his wife’s wedding ring in it. I know the sort.’

‘He had a big house in the country,’ Vernon said.

Cotton flipped open his notebook. ‘Where?’

‘Out west somewhere, she never said.’