“Please.”
“Given Gloria’s wayward nature, don’t you think you should be looking at this as a crime passionel?”
“Perhaps.” Banks shifted in his chair and crossed his legs the other way. Mrs. Goodall poured more tea. It was lukewarm. “What about Michael Stanhope?” he asked.
She raised her eyebrows. “There’s another one.”
“Another what?”
“Debauched, perverted. I could go on. Birds of a feather, him and Gloria Shackleton. Have you seen any of his so-called paintings?”
Banks nodded. “One of them seems to be a nude of Gloria. I wonder if you knew anything about that?”
“I can hardly say it surprises me, but no. Believe me, if such a painting exists, it was not public knowledge in Hobb’s End. At least not while I was there.”
“Do you think Gloria might have had an affair with Michael Stanhope?”
“I can’t say. Given that the two of them shared similar natures and views, I wouldn’t rule it out. They did spend a lot of time together. Drinking. As I recollect, though, even Gloria’s tastes weren’t quite so exotic as to extend as far as a tortured, drunken, depraved artist.”
“Did Gloria and Matthew have any children?”
“Not that I ever knew of.”
“And you would have known?”
“I think so. It’s hard to hide such things in a small village. Why do you ask?”
“There were certain indications in the postmortem, that’s all.” Banks scratched the tiny scar beside his right eye. “But nobody seems to know anything about it.”
“She could have had a child after we left in 1944.”
“It’s possible. Or perhaps she gave birth before she arrived in Hobb’s End and married Matthew Shackleton. After all, she was nineteen when she came to the village. Perhaps she abandoned the baby and its father in London.”
“But… but that means…”
“Means what, Mrs. Goodall?”
“Well, I never assumed that Matthew was her first conquest, not a woman like her. But a child…? Surely that would indicate she was already married, and that her marriage to Matthew was bigamous?”
“Just one more sin to add to her list,” said Banks. “But it wasn’t necessarily so. I imagine even back then, in the good old days, the odd child was born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
Mrs. Goodall’s lips tightened to a single red line for a moment, then she said, “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, Chief Inspector, or your coarseness. Things were better back then. Simpler. Clearer. Ordered. And the wartime spirit brought people together. People of all classes. Say what you will.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Goodall. I don’t mean to be sarcastic, really, but I’m trying to get to the bottom of a particularly nasty murder here, one that I probably have hardly any chance of solving because it was committed so long ago. I believe the victim deserves my best efforts, no matter what you may think of her.”
“Of course she does. I stand corrected. Gloria Shackleton could not possibly have deserved what you say happened to her. But I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you any further.”
“Did you know Matthew’s sister, Gwynneth?”
“Gwen? Oh, yes. Gwen was always rather the quiet one, head buried in a book. I imagined her becoming a teacher or something like that. Perhaps even a university professor. But she worked in the shop throughout the war, besides taking care of her mother and doing fire-watching at night. She was no shirker, wasn’t Gwen.”
“Do you know what became of her? Is she still alive?”
“I’m afraid we lost touch when William and I went to Scotland. We weren’t especially close, though she was a regular churchgoer and wrote for the parish magazine.”
“Were she and Gloria close?”
“Well, they had to be, to some extent, being family. But they were different as chalk and cheese. There was some talk about Gloria leading Gwen astray. They were always off to dances together in Harkside, or to the pictures. Gwen had generally avoided social intercourse until Gloria arrived on the scene, preferring her own company, or that of books. Gwen was always a rather impressionable girl. Though she took Gloria under her wing at first, so to speak, it was soon quite clear who exactly was under whose wing.”
“What was their age difference?”
“Gwen was two or three years younger, perhaps. Believe me, though, it makes a vast difference at that age.”
“What did she look like?”
“Gwen? She was rather a plain girl, apart from her eyes. Remarkable eyes, almost oriental the way they slanted. And she was tall. Tall and awkward. A gangly sort of girl.”
“What about Matthew?”
“A dashing, handsome fellow. Very mature. Gifted with wisdom beyond his years.” Again, she allowed a little smile to flit across her hard-set features. “If I hadn’t met my William and the Stringer girl hadn’t arrived on the scene, well… who knows? Anyway, she got her hands on him, and that was that.”
Banks let the silence stretch. He could hear a clock ticking in the background.
“If you’ll excuse me, Chief Inspector,” she said after a few moments, “I’m extremely tired. All those memories.”
Banks stood up. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time.”
“Not at all. It seems you’ve come a long way for nothing, or very little.”
Banks shrugged. “Part of the job. Besides, you’ve been a great help.”
“If there’s anything else I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to telephone.”
“Thank you.” Banks looked at his watch. Going on for one. Time for a spot of lunch before the long drive home.
We took the night train from Leeds, where the platform was crowded with young soldiers. The train clanked and steamed into the station only an hour late, and we felt ourselves jostled and pushed along by the crowd like corks in a fast-flowing river. I was terrified that we were going to fall between the carriages and be run over by the huge iron wheels, but we clung on to each other for dear life amid all the shoving and heaving and hissing steam, and we finally managed to get ourselves more or less pushed onto seats in a cramped compartment that soon grew even more cramped.
Another hour passed before the engine groaned and shuddered out of the station.
I had loved train journeys ever since I was a little girl, loved the gentle rocking motion, the hypnotic clickety-click of the wheels on the lines and the way the landscape drifts by like images from a dream.
Not that time.
A lot of trains had been damaged and most of the railway workshops were being used for munitions production. As a result, many of the engines in use would have been good for nothing but scrap iron if it hadn’t been for the war. The motion was jerky and we never really got going fast enough for a rhythmic clickety-click. Everyone was crushed far too closely together to make sleep possible. At least for me. I couldn’t even read. The blinds were drawn tight and the whole compartment was lit by one ghostly blue pinpoint of light, so dim you could hardly make out the features of the person sitting opposite you. There wasn’t even a restaurant car.
We talked for a while with two young soldiers, who offered us Woodbine after Woodbine. I think that was when I started to smoke, out of sheer boredom. Even when the first few puffs made me feel sick and dizzy, I persevered. It was something to do.
The soldiers sympathized and wished us luck when Gloria told them about Matthew. Then people started to fall silent, each drifting into his own world. For me it was a matter of gritting my teeth and enduring the long journey, the constant, unexplained delays, the jerking stops and starts.