DI Pople then questioned Mrs Coleman about the trip to Somerset. Her account of finding Stone Cottage, seeing Sylvia and Petal and then going out to sit in the car was virtually identical to what Miss Gribble had said.
‘But didn’t you find it odd that Sylvia didn’t come out to say goodbye to Petal and you?’
‘It was raining so hard, Gribby said she’d told her to stay indoors. She said we were taking Petal to the Coronation party and would come back for Sylvia later in the afternoon.’
‘But weren’t you horrified when Miss Gribble drove on out of the village?’
‘Absolutely. Petal screamed blue murder about going to the party and wanting her mother. Gribby stopped the car and smacked her. She whispered to me so Petal couldn’t hear that Stone Cottage wasn’t fit to keep pigs in and Sylvia couldn’t make ends meet so she’d suggested we took Petal and then Sylvia could go to London and get a job and come home at weekends. She said Sylvia was relieved because her life there was such a struggle. She didn’t even have electricity, or a bathroom!’
‘So you were glad?’
‘Well, yes. I’d seen how ramshackle Stone Cottage was. Then Petal snuggled up to me in the back of the car, and it all felt so good and right.’
‘When did you find out that Sylvia was dead?’
‘I didn’t. Later, when Petal was asleep, Gribby said that Sylvia was selling herself to make a living, and she’d become nasty and hard-faced. She also claimed that Sylvia had asked for fifty pounds for Petal, and she had given it to her.’
‘And you believed your daughter was capable of that?’
Christabel shrugged and made a gesture with her hands. ‘It had been six years since I’d seen her, and she hadn’t written once. She was living in a tumbledown shack, and I believed that Gribby was telling the truth about how she was living. I thought Sylvia had acted in Petal’s best interests.’
‘So when did you begin to doubt that?’
Christabel wrung her hands and looked frightened. ‘A few days after we got home, really. When Gribby was so stern and wouldn’t let Petal come down with us I remembered how things had been between her and Sylvia. I started to wonder why Sylvia would risk Petal being treated as she now was. I did have a big argument with Gribby about it, I said if Petal was going to live here she should be downstairs and going to school. It was after that I started to feel poorly, and I suppose I wasn’t capable of taking in what was going on, because I don’t really remember anything much from that time.’
‘Were you aware that Molly Heywood had come to the house and Miss Gribble had imprisoned her?’
‘No, I knew nothing of that. When I first got here I had a vague, dream-like picture of picking up an axe and a girl lying on the ground in the garden, but it was like that picture of Reg coming back – it didn’t seem real. Even now I know I did hit her with the axe, and she got Petal out of the house, it still seems like a story about someone else.’
DI Pople nodded. He felt that Christabel Coleman was an honest woman. Gullible, too trusting and weak, but as much a victim as Petal and Molly.
‘Miss Gribble did kill Sylvia. She admitted she saw red at something Sylvia had said. She described how she shook her, holding her by the arms, then banged her head back against the fireplace. We are fairly certain that she intended to kill Molly Heywood, too, and she even admitted that Petal would have to go also. In view of this, we think she could also have killed your husband when he came home from France. Because of this, we would like to ask your permission to dig up your garden.’
DI Pople watched Mrs Coleman’s face carefully and saw, in turn, horror, disbelief and then anger flood it.
She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. ‘Do it. And if you find my Reg there, then I shall wish I had taken that axe to her.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘It so wonderful to see you, Molly,’ Dilys said breathlessly, throwing her arms around her friend on the platform of Rye Station. ‘I’m dying to know what the police are doing about those two madwomen, and whether Charley has realized that you are the best thing that ever happened to him and returned to the fold.’
Dilys had come down to see Molly just after she got out of hospital. Molly had been smarting from Charley’s rejection, anxious about Petal and still feeling poorly, so, as lovely as it was to see Dilys, the visit hadn’t been all they’d both hoped for.
‘I’m so glad you came again,’ Molly said, picking up her friend’s overnight bag with one hand and tucking the other through her friend’s arm. ‘There’s so much to catch up on, and I wasn’t really myself last time.’
‘Gosh, Rye is pretty!’ Dilys said as they crossed the road into one of the many cobbled streets lined with tiny, ancient cottages leading up to the church. ‘No one ever told me there were nice places outside of Wales. I’ll have to spread the word.’
Molly giggled. She knew it was a joke, but then, people back home in Sawbridge seemed to believe there was nowhere else in England as lovely as the West Country.
‘I’ve got the rest of today off,’ she told her friend. ‘So what would you like to do? Mooch around town? Ride a bike down to Camber Sands? Catch the bus into Hastings? I haven’t even got to pick Petal up from school – Mrs Bridgenorth said she’d do it.’
‘Surely she’s old enough to come home on her own?’ Dilys asked.
‘Yes, she’s old enough, she’s recently had her seventh birthday, but after all she went through we don’t want some mean kid saying something nasty to her and setting her right back. Every now and then she still gets a bit sad and scared, so we have to keep an eye on her.’
‘Poor kid. I think it’s amazing she’s come out of it so well. But speaking of coming out of things well, I’ve got a surprise for you.’
‘You’re coming down here to work?’
Dilys laughed. ‘No, nothing to do with me. It’s good news for you. Miss Stow has been caught handing goods over to a friend.’
Molly stopped short in shock. ‘Really? She blamed me and she was doing it herself?’
‘That’s right! She got transferred to Handbags just recently. There was a bit of a stink when they did a stock check on Gloves, but it was assumed by everyone they’d been stolen by customers – after all, they’re quite small and easy to hide. But then Mr Hardcraft caught her and her friend red-handed. Miss Stow had rung up a cheap plastic handbag but she’d put a really dear leather one in with it. It turned out she’d been doing it for some time.’
‘That bitch blamed me!’ Molly exclaimed, her cheeks turning red with anger. ‘They threw me out the night before Christmas Eve. I went through hell.’
‘I know. Everyone’s talking about it at Bourne & Hollingsworth. Nobody ever believed you’d done it, anyway, except of course Mr Hardcraft and Miss Jackson. But wait, its gets better, they checked her room and they found all sorts of stuff she’d nicked. She’d been putting it down her girdle to get past security.’
‘I bet they don’t even bother to apologize to me,’ Molly said with some bitterness. She had never been able to forget the shame and humiliation of being made to leave the company.
‘I think you’re wrong there,’ Dilys grinned. ‘You see, a lot of people saw the story in the newspaper about you rescuing Petal, so when this thing about Miss Stow broke two days ago everyone was up in arms on your behalf. They’re going to have to do something for you. After all, you could go to the newspapers.’
‘I wouldn’t do that. It was bad enough being accused in the first place, and I certainly don’t want the world and his wife to learn about it now.’