"Could be. Did he have the key in his hand?"
"I wasn't looking."
"Did you hear anything?"
"The knocking."
"Anything else?"
"I heard a stone being moved after the knocking."
The flowerpot. "How do you know it was a man if you weren't looking?"
"He called out. 'Jenny, Ruth, Mathilda, are you there?' It was a man all right."
"Describe his voice."
"Posh."
"Old? Young? Forceful? Weak? Drunk? Sober? Pull your finger out, lad. What sort of impression did you get of him?"
"I already told you. I reckoned it was an old man. That's why I thought it was her coming back. He was really slow and his voice was all breathy, like he had trouble with his lungs. Or was very unfit." He thought for a moment. "He might have been drunk, though," he added. "He had real trouble getting the words out."
"Did you go round the front afterwards?"
Dave shook his head. "Hopped over the fence and went back to the van."
"So you don't know if he came by car?"
"No." A flash of something-indecision?-crossed his face.
"Go on," prompted Jones.
"I'd never swear to it, so it's not evidence."
"What isn't?"
"I was listening, if you get my meaning. He gave me a hell of a shock when I heard him coming so I reckon I'd've heard a car if there'd been one. That gravel at the front makes a hell of a row."
"When was this?"
"Middle of September. Thereabouts."
"Okay. Anything else?"
"Yeah." He fingered his shoulder gingerly where Jack's car door had slammed into it. "If you want to know who killed the old biddy then you should talk to the bastard who dislocated my fucking arm last night. I sussed him the minute I saw his face in the light. He was forever sniffing round her, in and out that place like he owned it, but he made damn sure Ruth wasn't there at the time. I spotted him two or three times up by the church, waiting till the coast was clear. Reckon he's the one you should be interested in if it's right what Ruth told me, that the old woman's wrists were slit with a Stanley knife."
Charlie eyed him curiously. "Why do you say that?"
"He cleaned one of the gravestones while he was waiting, scraped the dirt out of the words written on it. And not just the once neither. He was really fascinated by that stone." He looked smug. "Used a Stanley knife to do it, too, didn't he? I went and read it afterwards ... "Did I deserve to be despised, By my creator, good and wise? Since you it was who made me be, Then part of you must die with me." Some bloke called Fitzgibbon who snuffed it in 1833. Thought I'd use it myself when the time came. Kind of hits the nail on the head, wouldn't you say?"
"You won't be given the chance. They censor epitaphs these days. Religion takes itself seriously now the congregations have started to vanish." He stood up. "A pity, really. Humour never harmed anyone."
"You interested in him now then?"
"I've always been interested in him, lad." Charlie smiled mournfully. "Mrs. Gillespie's death was very artistic."
Cooper found the Inspector enjoying a late pint over cheese and onion sandwiches at the Dog and Bottle in Learmouth. He lowered himself with a sigh on to the seat beside him. "Feet playing you up again?" asked Charlie sympathetically through a mouthful of bread.
"I wouldn't mind so much," Cooper grumbled, "if my inside had aged at the same rate as my outside. If I felt fifty-six, it probably wouldn't bug me." He rubbed his calves to restore the circulation. "I promised the wife we'd take up dancing again when I retired, but at this rate we'll be doing it with Zimmer frames."
Charlie grinned. "So there's no truth in the saying: you're as old as you feel?"
"None whatsoever. You're as old as your body tells you you are. I'll still feel eighteen when I'm a bedridden ninety-year-old and I still won't be able to play football for England. I only ever wanted to be Stanley Matthews," he said wistfully. "My dad took me to watch him and Blackpool win the FA cup in 1953 as a sixteenth birthday present. It was pure magic. I've never forgotten it."
"I wanted to be Tom Kelley," said Charlie.
"Who's he?"
The Inspector chuckled as he wiped his fingers on a napkin. "The photographer who persuaded Marilyn Monroe to pose nude for him. Imagine it. Marilyn Monroe entirely naked and you on the other side of the lens. Now, that really would have been magic."
"We're in the wrong business, Charlie. There's no charm in what we do."
"Mrs. Marriott hasn't raised your spirits then?"
"No." He sighed again. "I made a promise to her, said we wouldn't use what she told me unless we had to, but I can't see at the moment how we can avoid it. If it doesn't have a bearing on the case, then I'm a monkey's uncle. First, Joanna Lascelles was not Mrs. Gillespie's only child. She had another one thirteen, fourteen months later by Mrs. Marriott's husband." He ran through the background for Charlie's benefit. "Mrs. Marriott believed Mrs. Gillespie killed the baby when it was born, but on the morning of the sixth, Mrs. Gillespie told her it had been a boy and that she'd put it up for adoption when it was born."
Charlie leaned forward, his eyes bright with curiosity. "Does she know what happened to him?"
Cooper shook his head. "They were screaming at each other, apparently, and that little tit-bit was tossed out by Mrs. Gillespie as she closed the door. Mrs. Marriott says Mathilda wanted to hurt her, so it might not even be true."
"Okay. Go on."
"Second, and this is the real shocker, Mrs. Marriott stole some barbiturates from her father's dispensary which she says Mathilda used to murder Gerald Cavendish." He detailed what Jane had told him, shaking his head from time to time whenever he touched on James Gillespie's part in the tragedy. "He's evil, that one, blackmails everyone as far as I can judge. The wretched woman's terrified he's going to broadcast what he knows."
"Serves her right," said Charlie unsympathetically. "What a corrupt lot they all were, and they say it's only recently the country started going to pot. You say she went to see Mrs. Gillespie on the morning of the murder. What else did Mrs. Gillespie tell her?"
"Murder?" queried Cooper with a touch of irony. "Don't tell me you agree with me at last?"
"Get on with it, you old rogue," said Jones impatiently. "I'm on the edge of my seat here."
"Mrs. Gillespie began by being very cool and composed, told Mrs. Marriott that the whole matter was out of her hands and that she wasn't prepared to pay the sort of money James was demanding from her. As far as she was concerned she didn't care any more what people said or thought about her. There had never been any doubt that Gerald committed suicide and if Jane wanted to own up to stealing drugs from her father, that was her affair. Mathilda would deny knowing anything about them." He opened his notebook. "I'm more sinned against than sinning,' " she said and advised Mrs. Marriott that, in the matter of the baby, things would get worse before they got better. She went on to say that Mrs. Marriott was a fool for keeping her husband in the dark all these years. They had a terrible row during which Mrs. Marriott accused Mrs. Gillespie of ruining the lives of everyone she had ever had contact with, at which point Mrs. Gillespie ordered her out of the house with the words: "James has been reading my private papers and knows where the child is. It's quite pointless to keep quiet any longer." She then told Mrs. Marriott it was a boy and that she'd put it up for adoption." He closed the notebook. "My bet is the 'private papers' were the diaries and things were going to get worse because Mrs. Gillespie had made up her mind to acknowledge her illegitimate child and spike James's guns." He rubbed his jaw wearily. "Not that that scenario really makes a great deal more sense than it did before. We'd more or less decided that whoever was reading the diaries was the same person who stole them and murdered the old lady, and I still say James Gillespie wouldn't have drawn our attention to the diaries if he was the guilty party. The psychology's all wrong. And what motive did he have for killing her? She was far more valuable alive as a blackmail victim. Let's face it, it wasn't just the business of the baby he could hold over her, it was her uncle's murder as well."