‘Your grandson told you?’
'Course he did. Before he ever told you.’ She was proud that she enjoyed the confidence of the young, and she smiled. But the smile was brief. Archaically, she said, ‘She was wickedly murdered.’
‘Yes, Mrs Parker. I believe you knew her well?’
‘As well as my own children. She used to come and see me every time she come down here. Rather see me than her dad, she would.’
At last, he thought. ‘Then you’ll be able to tell me her address?’
‘Speak up, will you?’
‘Her address in London?’
‘Don’t know it. What’d I want to know that for? I’ve not written a letter in ten years and I’ve only been to London twice in my life.'
He had wasted his time coming here, and he couldn’t afford to waste time.
‘I can tell you all about her, though,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Everything you’ll want to know. And about the family. Nobody can tell you like I can. You’ve come to the right place for that.’
‘Mrs Parker, I don’t think…’ That I care? That it matters? What he wanted at this stage was an address, not a biography, especially not one told with meanderings and digressions. But how to cut short without offence a woman of ninety-two whose deafness made interruption virtually impossible? He would have to listen and hope it wouldn’t go on too long. Besides, she had already begun…
‘They come here when Rhoda was a little mite. An only child she was, and used to play with my two youngest. A poor feeble thing was Agnes Comfrey, didn’t know how to stand up for herself, and Mr Comfrey was a real terror. I don’t say he hit her or Rhoda, but he ruled them with a rod of iron just the same.’ She rapped out sharply. ‘You come across that Mrs Crown yet?’
‘Yes,’ said Wexford, ‘But…’ Oh, not the aunt, he thought, not the by-path. She hadn’t heard him.
‘You will. A crying scandal to the whole neighbourhood, she is. Used to come here visiting her sister when her first husband was alive. Before the war, that was, and she was a real fly-by-night even then, though she never took to drink till he was killed at Dunkirk. She had this baby about three months after – I daresay it was his all right, give her the benefit of the doubt – but it was one of them mongols, poor little love. John, they called him. Her and him come to live here with the Comfreys. Aggie used to come over to me in a terrible state of worry about what Lilian got up to and tried to keep dark, and Jim Comfrey threatening to throw her out.'
‘Well, the upshot of it was she met this Crown in the nick of time and they took the house next door when they was married on account of it had been empty all through the war. And d’you know what she done then?’ Wexford shook his head and stared at the pyramid of peas which were having a mesmeric effect on him.
‘I’ll tell you. She had little John put in a home. Have you ever heard the like, for a mother to do such a thing like that? Sweet affectionate little love he was too, the way them mongols are, and loved Rhoda, and she taking him out with her, not a bit ashamed.
‘She’d have been how old then, Mrs Parker?’ Wexford said for something to say. It was a mistake because he didn’t really care, and he had to bawl it twice more before she heard.
‘Twelve, she was, when he was born, and sixteen when Lilian had him put away. She was at the County High School, and Mr Comfrey wanted to take her away when she was fourteen like you could in them days. The headmistress herself, Miss Fowler that was, come to the house personally herself to beg him let Rhoda stay on, her being so bright. Well, he gave way for a bit, but he wasn’t having her go on to no college, made her leave at sixteen, wanted her money, he said, the old skinflint.’
It was very hot, and the words began to roll over Wexford only half-heard. Just the very usual unhappy tale of the mean-spirited working-class parent who values cash in hand more than the career in the future. ‘Got shop work – wanted to better herself, did Rhoda – always shut up in that back bedroom reading – taught herself French – went to typing classes – ’ How the hell was he going to get that address? Trace her through those clothes, those antique shoes? Not a hope. The sharp old voice cackled on… ‘Nothing to look at – never had a boy – that Lilian always at her – “When you going to get yourself a boy-friend, Rhoda?” – got to be a secretary – poor thing, she used to get herself up like Lilian, flashy clothes and high heels and paint all over her face.’
He’d have to get help from the Press: Do You Know This Woman? On the strength of that photograph? ‘Aggie got cancer – never went to the doctor till it was too late – had an operation, but it wasn’t no use – she passed on and poor Rhoda was left with the old man – ' Well, he wasn’t going to allow publication of photos of her dead face, never had done that and never would. If only Mrs Parker would come to an end, if only she hadn’t about twenty years still to go! ‘And would have stayed, I daresay – been a slave to him – stayed for ever but for getting all that money – tied to him hand and foot – ’
‘What did you say?’
‘I’m the one that’s deaf, young man,’ said Mrs Parker.
‘I know, I’m sorry. But what was that about coming into money?’
‘You want to listen when you’re spoken to, not go off in day-dreams. She didn’t come into money, she won it. On the pools, it was one of them office what-d’you-call-its.’
‘Syndicates?’
‘I daresay. Old Jim Comfrey, he thought he was in clover. "My ship’s come in," he says to my eldest son. But he was wrong there. Rhoda upped and walked out on him, and so much for the house he was going to have and the car and all.’
‘How much was it?’
‘How much was what? What she won? Thousands and thousands. She never said and I wouldn’t ask. She come round to my place one afternoon – I was living up the road then – and she’d got a big case all packed. Just thirty, she was, and twenty years ago nearly to the day. She had the same birthday as me, you see, August the fifth, and forty-two years between us. "I’m leaving. Auntie Vi," she says, "going to London to seek my fortune," and she gives me the address of some hotel and says would I have all her books packed up and sent on to her? Fat chance of that. Jim Comfrey burned the lot of them down the garden. I can see her now like it was yesterday, in them high heels she couldn’t walk in properly and a dress all frills, and beads all over her and fingernails like she’d dipped them in red paint and…’
‘You didn’t see her yesterday, did you?’ Wexford yelled rapidly. ‘I mean, the day before yesterday?’
‘No. didn’t know she was here. She’d have come, though, if it wasn’t for some wicked…’
‘What was she going to do in London, Mrs Parker?’
‘Be a reporter on a paper. That’s what she wanted. She was secretary to the editor of the Gazette and she used to write bits for them too. I told you all that only you wasn’t listening.’
Puzzled, he said, ‘But Mrs Crown said she was in business.’
‘All I can say is, if you believe her you’ll believe anything. Rhoda got to be a reporter and did well for herself, had a nice home, she used to tell me, and what with the money she’d won and her wages…’
He bellowed, ‘What newspaper, d’you know? Whereabouts was this home of hers?’
Mrs Parker drew herself up, assuming a duchessy dignity. She said rather frigidly, ‘Lord knows, I hope you’ll never get to be deaf, young man. But maybe you’ll never understand unless you do. Half the things folks say to you go over your head, and you can’t keep stopping them to ask them what? Can you? They think you’re going mental. Rhoda used to say she’d written a bit here and a bit there, and gone to this place or that, and bought things for her home and whatnot, and how nice it was and what nice friends she’d got. I liked to hear her talk, I liked her being friendly with an old woman, but I know better than to think I’m like to follow half the things she said.’