appalled at the notion. ‘She’s a widow,’ he told Kelsey. ‘Venetia’s father died some years ago, not long after we were married. Her mother sold the house and went back to Wychford, that was where she’d lived as a girl.’ Wychford was a small town ten miles to the west of Cannonbridge. ‘She can’t get about much, she suffers badly from arthritis. She moved into sheltered accommodation a few years ago, one of those places with a warden. I haven’t seen her since the divorce.’ He grimaced. ‘She was pretty upset about all that–even though she’d never thought me good enough for her daughter.’ Venetia had been an only child and he knew of no other relatives.
He looked uneasily up at Kelsey. ‘I’ll have to go over to see Mrs Stacey–Venetia’s mother. I can’t very well tell her over the phone.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘I’d better get cracking.’
‘We can tell her if you like,’ Kelsey offered. ‘We’ll have to see her anyway.’
Detective Sergeant Lambert drove the chief over to Wychford. When they reached the apartment block Kelsey sought out the warden and explained his errand. She took them along to Mrs Stacey’s flat, going in first to prepare the ground, and staying in the room while the Chief broke the news.
Mrs Stacey was a small, slight woman in her late sixties, looking several years older. Her habitual manner appeared withdrawn and self-absorbed; she had a faded, desiccated air, a resigned and melancholy expression.
It seemed to Sergeant Lambert that she bore the news with a good deal more fortitude and self-control than might have been expected. As if she were walled off in her little flat from the happenings of the larger life outside and what filtered through to her restricted world could have no very profound or lasting effect on the small routines of her daily existence.
The warden brought in a tray of tea and waited till Mrs Stacey felt able to answer questions. When the door had finally closed behind the warden Kelsey began by asking Mrs Stacey if she had any idea where her daughter had intended going for the weekend.
‘No idea at all,’ she told him. ‘But then I wouldn’t expect to know.’ She spoke without any sign of emotion, she might have been talking of some chance acquaintance.
She hadn’t seen much of Venetia since she’d moved back to Wychford, she had seen even less of her after the divorce. ‘She brought the children over to see me once in a way. For my birthday or at Christmastime.’ She gestured with a knobby hand. ‘She had her own life. We were never close, I was almost forty when she was born. She was always a lot closer to her father.’
Kelsey asked when she had last seen her daughter. ‘The best part of two months ago,’ she said. ‘It was a Sunday, early in March, a beautiful sunny day. She just put the children in the car and brought them over. She could be like that sometimes, acted on impulse.’ She looked at Kelsey with no expression on her lined, withered face. ‘She didn’t let me know they were coming. I don’t have my own phone here but people can ring the warden.’ Her hands drooped in her lap. ‘I was having a nap after lunch when they came . . .’ Her voice trailed away. It’s beginning to get to her, Sergeant Lambert thought.
‘Did you notice anything in particular about her state of mind?’ Kelsey asked. ‘Did she appear worried in any way? Did she mention any difficulties?’
‘Do you mean difficulties about money? As far as I knew, she was all right for money. She never complained of being short and she always seemed able to afford what she wanted. She never discussed her financial affairs with me.’
‘Did she mention any other kind of worries? Of a personal kind, perhaps?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘She seemed perfectly all right, just as usual.’
‘Do you know of any men friends?’
‘She had men friends, of course. She was never short of boyfriends, right from when she was at school.’ She glanced across at a photograph of Venetia as a girl of sixteen or seventeen. It stood with a dozen others on a Victorian whatnot in the corner. She gave a long trembling sigh and fell silent.
‘Can you tell me the names of any of her men friends?’ Kelsey prompted when she showed no sign of continuing.
She shook her head again. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know any names. She’d just say something in passing, she’d been to a show or out to dinner, but she never mentioned any names.’
‘Do you know if she had any intention of marrying again?’
‘She did say once or twice that she’d never marry again, once was more than enough. She said it as if she meant it–but then another time she’d say something half-joking, as if she did think of marrying again.’ She paused and then added, ‘One day last year she said: “Do you remember how you always wanted me to marry someone respectable? A professional man of standing in the community?” She glanced up at Kelsey. ‘She was teasing me when she said that, of course. Years ago, when she was a girl, I used to say that sort of thing to her sometimes, that she mustn’t throw herself away on the first man that asked her, she ought to marry someone of substance.’ She drew a little sighing breath. ‘She laughed–this was that day last year–and said: “You never know, I might surprise you after all one of these days and do just that.”’
‘Do you think she had some particular man in mind when she said that?’
‘I’ve no idea. You never knew when to take her seriously.’ She closed her eyes and lowered her head. After a moment she fumbled in her pocket with her twisted fingers and took out a handkerchief; she dabbed clumsily at her eyes.
‘She was only eighteen when she got married,’ she said as she put the handkerchief away again. ‘Roy was five or six years older. I was against it, I thought she was much too young. But her father never could stand out against her for long. And he thought Roy had a lot of go about him, he thought he’d do well in life.’ She sighed again and shook her head. ‘So I hoped for the best, I hoped it would work out all right.’ She moved a hand. ‘I can’t say I was very surprised when it ended in divorce, I never thought they were really suited.’
‘Were you surprised at the way the divorce came about?’
‘You mean that it was Roy who found someone else and not Venetia? No, not really. After a year or two, when the honeymoon days were over, Roy started going on at Venetia, finding fault with her. He thought she was extravagant, she should help in the business. He wanted her to serve in the shop–she used to work in a shop before she was married but it was a very different place from Franklin’s, very high-class. Youngjohn’s, the china and gift shop, I expect you know it. They have such lovely things there and of course Venetia always liked beautiful things, she had very good taste.’ Tears threatened again but she made a determined effort to blink them away. ‘She never paid much attention to Roy’s grumbles, she just went on in her own way. She used to laugh at him, say he took things too seriously, there was more to life than working every hour God sends.’
‘What kind of terms was she on with Roy and his second wife?’
“Very good,’ she said at once. ‘There was never anything spiteful about Venetia.’
‘Do you know of any particular woman friend? Someone she might have confided in?’
‘She wasn’t the kind to have close women friends.’ She pondered. ‘There’s Megan, Megan Brewster, I suppose she might have talked to her, though she hadn’t seen her for years until about six months ago. Megan was the nearest she ever had to a sister when they
