‘Just before seven. George and I were settling down to listen to The Archers on the radio. It hadn’t started.’
‘Four hours after he’d found Mrs Lomax unconscious and she’d been taken to hospital?’
‘I can’t tell you how shocked I was. It was terrible.’
‘The bed was soiled?’
‘Poor love.’
‘You changed it?’
‘Of course I did,’ said Elspeth, with a trace of indignation. ‘Mr Lomax didn’t intend to sleep there, of course. He slept in another room.’
‘What else had to be done, to Mrs Lomax’s bedroom, to tidy it up?’
‘There were things all over the cabinet. A syringe and ampoules. I knew what they were, of course.’
‘But you’d never seen them before, not scattered about like that?’
‘No.’
Another idea came abruptly to Hall. ‘Tell me about the bed itself. Was it a double, in which they slept together? Or two singles?’
The woman pursed her lips, as if she was reluctant to disclose an intimacy, which he was sure she’d never been. ‘Double.’
‘Which you made, every day?’
‘Yes.’
‘On what side did Mrs Lomax sleep, left or right?’
She frowned. ‘Left.’
‘So it would have been with her left hand that she reached out for anything on the bedside cabinet?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘What about the clothes Mrs Lomax had worn… it would have been the Thursday, the day you were there, wouldn’t it?’
‘A grey dress with a very faint yellow pattern,’ remembered the housekeeper. ‘Doesn’t sound like it but it was beautiful. It was hung up in the closet.’
‘She always hung her clothes up?’
‘I told you, she liked things neat and tidy almost as much as I do.’
‘What about underclothes?’
‘Where they always were, in the laundry basket in the bathroom.’
‘Put away?’
She frowned. ‘That’s what you do with dirty underclothes: put it away to be washed.’
‘Did you see much of Mr Lomax, when you were back at the house that night?’
‘He was lost. Devastated. He just wandered about, from room to room, not knowing what to do.’
‘How did you see a lot of him if he wandered about from room to room and you were working in two specific places: the bedroom and the kitchen?’
The question surprised the woman. ‘Because he was always where I was, I suppose. I hadn’t thought about it.’
‘How long were you back at the house?’
‘Not very long. There really wasn’t much to do but obviously he didn’t want to do it himself. No more than an hour, I suppose.’
‘Mr Lomax had taken you there. Did he drive you home?’
She shook her head. ‘He was too upset. He got a taxi for me. Fred Knowland. Works out of Alton. He was the man Mr Lomax always called: took people to the station at Winchester or Alton, things like that. All the way to London sometimes.’
Briefly, believing he could indulge himself, Hall tried to imagine what the carnation button-holed Superintendent John Bentley, the hitherto successful investigator of every murder, would have done now.
Elspeth, the gossip to whom any verbal silence was torture, said, ‘It was funny, about Fred.’
‘What was?’ said Hall.
‘He collects cars. Knows about them. He’s got an old open-topped bus he restored and hires out for weddings. It’s ever so popular. He saw the mister’s car, when he picked me up – it was one of those big American ones then – and said it was unusual for him to be home so much during the week and that he’d seen him arriving the previous night.’
Hall looked steadily at the woman. The previous night? You mean the Thursday?’
‘That’s what he said. He was working a contract, picking up someone from Winchester station, and he’d seen the mister’s car turning off the M3.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That he had to be mistaken. That the mister had been in London that night, like always – Mrs Lomax told me he was going to be, before I left – and that he never came home on the M3 anyway. He always said the A3 was quicker and there weren’t so many cars.’
‘Did you tell anyone this? Harry Elroyd?’
‘Why should I have done? It wasn’t right because I knew the mister was in London. It was daft.’
That’s how Knowland described it – ‘bloody daft: had to be, didn’t it?’ – when he responded to Elspeth Simpson’s call. The man’s recognition was instant – the reaction bright-eyed greed – and Hall immediately guessed Fred Knowland had profited hugely from the press invasion of the area and imagined even greater financial benefit from this encounter. The man, fat from sitting permanently in a driving seat, sparse-haired and quick to smile, asked as many questions as he answered and Hall didn’t doubt he would alert the press posse before he’d had time to get back to Winchester station. Elspeth was visibly distressed at having another chair seat dented, picking up and moving ornaments and picture frames and then putting them back in their original place.
‘It was exactly that, a mistake,’ she said, more than once, trying to hurry things on so she could polish and tidy away their intrusion.
‘What car was it?’ Hall persisted.
‘Cadillac de Ville,’ said Knowland. ‘Beautiful car. Had one once. Sorry I got rid of it.’
‘What colour?’
‘Mr Lomax’s? Black.’
‘You must have known the number?’
‘The system’s funny. The filter off the M3 is from a roundabout on to the road to get into Winchester. I was actually going in the opposite direction, on to the roundabout, as this car came off. I was never in a position to see a number. It was dark – it was past ten: I was going to pick up a contract customer – and it was raining. I just recognized the shape of the car: knew it immediately.’
‘As Mr Lomax’s?’
‘Why is it important?’
‘I’m clearing up the estate: there’s some dispute about whether it was a company car or personally owned,’ lied Hall, improvising.
‘No,’ responded Knowland, answering the question. ‘I recognized it as a de Ville.’
‘How many people were in it?’
‘What’s that got to do with whether it was a company car or not?’
‘Mr Lomax would have been alone, wouldn’t he? If there were several people it couldn’t have been his.’
‘It was by me in a second. But one person, I think.’
‘You must know most of the unusual cars around here, driving all the time as you do? And having the interest?’
The man smiled. ‘Not many I don’t see.’
‘So around the time we’re talking about how many other Cadillac de Villes were there in the area?’
The smile went. ‘None, as far as I know. That’s why I thought at first it had to be Mr Lomax. Until I talked to Elspeth.’
‘I think you’re right,’ agreed Hall. ‘I’ve been wasting my time.’ Knowland would obviously lead the media horde to Elspeth Simpson, who was looking visibly confused at his questions about the car. It was going to be a confused story.
‘Far to go?’ asked Knowland.
‘London.’
‘I could drive you back. Drove people around a lot for Mr Lomax. I could tell you a few stories.’
All of which had already been told and re-told and embellished, Hall was sure. ‘I’ve got a return ticket.’
‘Winchester station taxi?’ said Knowland, showing off his local knowledge and nodding to the retained vehicle outside. ‘He’d understand if you paid him off. It’s more comfortable by car. Give you a company rate, like I used to give Mr Lomax.’
‘No. But thanks.’
‘You got a number I can call you on, if anything else occurs to me?’
‘Sure,’ agreed Hall at once, offering a card with the chamber’s number.
Knowland’s hand snatched out and enclosed it like a lizard’s tongue capturing an insect. ‘Will you be down again?’
‘Maybe.’
The man’s hand was shaking with excitement as he offered his own card. ‘You need a car, just give me a ring. I’ll meet you anywhere. Come to collect you if you like.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ said Hall, accepting it.