LITMIR.BIZ

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meant who’s with you.

      ‘I’m in the kitchen on my own,’ said Val with caution.

      ‘The police have been questioning Tim about the Kinver girl. Her murder, that is. Asking how well he knew her, where he was that day and so on.’

      Where had he been. Val wondered. ‘I expect they are going round all the girl’s friends,’ she said.

      ‘So I suppose.’

      ‘Who told you?’

      ‘Not Tim,’ said his father with feeling. ‘Mrs Anneck rang up. They had Peter in.’

      ‘Well, there you are then. The police are just doing the rounds.’

      ‘Don’t tell Mother. I don’t want her worried, her heart’s bad.’

      Val sighed. ‘She’ll pick it up. She’s sending out signals like a TV station as it is. She might very well be listening now.’

      ‘About the murder?’

      ‘Not only that. She wonders if you have a lover.’ She held the receiver to her ear, listening carefully.

      Leonard Zeman managed a laugh; he too had heard the sound of breathing. Mother had arrived. Where had she been until now? Probably cleaning her teeth after all that strong tea.

      ‘Or if Felicity has one, or even me. But she thinks I’m a failure there.’ Val did not mind repeating this; after all, it was no news to Mrs Zeman, whose breathing could be clearly heard now, and Leonard ought to know.

      ‘Tell her I’m sending her medicine round, will you? It’s a new tablet prescribed for her to try.’ Not by him, of course, but by one of his partners, he did not treat his own family. ‘See she takes the proper dose, will you?’

      The conversation moved on to things medical which it was perfectly allowable for Mrs Zeman to overhear, and which, indeed, he was talking about so that she could.

      He and Val had learnt plenty of tricks.

      As she leant against the kitchen wall talking, Val could see Mary Anneck come out of her back door and walk down the garden path with her dog.

      Mrs Anneck strolled down the paved way between the geraniums with her Jack Russell nipping at her heels. She was used to this, wore stout shoes and boots sometimes on purpose.

      She knew she was right to have telephoned Leonard Zeman. She had the feeling that at a time like this they must stick together. The police had been in her house interviewing her elder son, Peter, her daughter, her daughter’s current boyfriend (although he hadn’t been that last week and might not be next, they changed so fast), and her young son Adrian. She supposed that they had to question all Anna’s friends, although it was hardly likely Adrian could be of much use to them since he was only twelve, but you never knew these days.

      It was what you never knew that made her heart sink.

      ‘Be quiet, Edie,’ she said to the terrier bitch who had caught sight, or thought she had, of a whisker of her brother and best enemy through the garden hedge and was screaming in fury.

      Mary Anneck concluded that the dogs would get no regular exercise until the dog-walker, Jim Marsh, had recovered his balance. He must be having quite a time with the police too, poor boy.

      Like Kay Zeman she was worried about him. Life could be so unfair. She thought he’d had enough. He always looked so frail physically too, with those narrow bones and that thin face, but of course, he couldn’t be, because he walked all the dogs and handled them beautifully. She must try and feed him up, she was a great believer in red meat and none of this vegetarian business that his mother Clare had gone in for. Anorexic she’d been in Mary’s opinion and her death no disaster to anyone once they’d got over the shock.

      It was a mystery why Clare had killed herself, but by all account she’d made one or two earlier attempts. Perhaps she just didn’t like being a milkman’s wife. And that was no joke, thought Mary Anneck, because Clare had almost certainly started out life with different ideas. Philosophy at Oxford, hadn’t it been?

      Then to her surprise, she heard the bell ringing from the Darbyshires’ back door, which must mean that Jumbo (their little disaster of a dog was called Jumbo, although he was the smallest, shortest Jack Russell imaginable) was going out on his walk. And since Philippa Darbyshire had broken her ankle, and her Harold hated the dog even more than Jumbo hated him, it must mean that Jim Marsh was on the job. With any luck he would come for Edie next.

      Philippa Darbyshire limped back to her chair from her bell-ringing exercise, thankful to see the back of Jumbo for a bit. With plenty of exercise you could just be in the same room with him; without a lot he was unbearable. He was always unbearable, Harold said, but that was unkind. Jumbo had defended Philippa from a mugger once, and although it had been a task after his own heart, and the mugger had felt desexed by his wounds for some months and had considered claiming damages, it had ensured Jumbo a longer life than might otherwise have been expected, taking his ferocious habits into account.

      Philippa herself was still shaken from the death of Anna Mary. Since no payment was asked she had tutored the girl in extra mathematics for her computer studies out of love of the subject and sympathy with the girl, so ambitious, so pretty, so badly taught elsewhere. Harold had helped here too.

      She had been questioned by the police and so too had Harold. She hadn’t liked the idea of that interrogation, because that was what it had been judging by Harold’s face afterwards, cross and white. What had Harold got to do with the death of this girl he hardly knew? He only saw her when she came to the house for tutorials.

      The boys would be back from Scotland tomorrow, when no doubt the police would want to interview them too. They had been friendly enough with Anna, close even, she knew it and no doubt that smooth policeman Inspector Younger knew it too. They had not been in London the night she was killed. Presumably you called t-hat an alibi.

      She might have a talk with Valerie Humbertson about it, Val was about her closest friend, but she thought that Val had troubles of her own.

      Stella Pinero could be more helpful, she knew how to give advice. Had been through the mill herself. Many a time and oft, as she had once said with feeling. Stella was not a close friend, but an admired one, and the girl’s mother had worked for her. Still did, probably, if she was up to working for anyone now. Mrs Kinver had worked for Philippa herself once, but when the offer of a job at the theatre had come up, she had been unable to resist it. Philippa had understood, she was stage-struck herself.

      It was a horrible business, but the police would soon sort it out.

      On this hopeful note, she awaited the arrival of Jim Marsh to exercise old Jumbo.

      Two days, three days, a week. Unease was still oiling itself all over Leathergate with Spinnergate feeling it too. The discomfort, quite physical for some people like the Kinvers, husband and wife, reached even St Luke’s Theatre Workshop where the company directed by Stella Pinero had embarked on advance preparation for its most ambitious production so far.

      They needed something popular so they were going to do Cavalcade, using local actors for part of the huge cast. Not that their cast was going to be Drury Lane big. Stella had pruned sternly.

      Using local talent was a wise political gesture (low cunning, some said) since the theatre received a grant on condition it hired graduates from the Drama Department of the new Dockside University. Using amateurs fulfilled the spirit of the thing, Stella maintained, with the advantage they did not have to be paid. She was always short of ready cash. Lætitia Bingham, her ultimate controller, kept them on a rolling budget.

      Hopefuls were flooding in for audition, their arrivals organized by several amateur acting societies and the Theatre Club in which Mary Anneck and Philippa Darbyshire were prominent. But with this flood came also a spate of rumours and anxieties about the murder of Anna Mary.

      She was surprised how guilty many felt. Guilt and alarm seemed spread about the community. Somehow it was their fault, they were a bad lot in Leathergate

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