Yes, Kelsey did know the place, on the southern tip of Cannonbridge. An Edwardian house had stood there until a couple of years ago. The site was occupied now by sheltered-accommodation units for the elderly.
He asked if Joanne had contacted Miss Gallimore. Yes, she had called at the house on a Monday afternoon at the end of February; she had been given the address by the Cannonbridge Secretarial Agency. Miss Gallimore had told her what she had just told the Chief. Joanne had said nothing to her about any discoveries she had made or any leads she intended following.
When they left the house Kelsey looked at his watch: time to be getting along for the results of the post mortem. The Cannonbridge Secretarial Agency would have to wait till tomorrow when the agency would be open again after the Bank Holiday, but they could call in at the Tradesmen’s Agency this afternoon. This was a small concern run from a private house by a Mrs Ingram; it dealt with the services of plumbers, carpenters, electricians and the like. Mrs Ingram had phoned them on Sunday evening to say that Helen Mowbray had worked for several of the men on the agency books; she would be at home all day if they wished to talk to her. ‘After we’ve seen her,’ Kelsey told Sergeant Lambert, ‘you can get on over to Martleigh again, see if you can manage a word with that neighbour of Lockyear’s, Mrs Snape.’
The post mortem provided no surprises; afterwards there was a conference, briefings, the Press to be dealt with. It was turned three by the time they reached the small detached dwelling that housed the office of the Tradesmen’s Agency.
Mrs Ingram was on the phone when they arrived. She was a youngish woman with a briskly capable manner. She had spent the morning attempting to contact the men on her books in order to ask them about their dealings with Helen Mowbray, but she had been able to speak to very few of them, because of the holiday. From those she had spoken to she had learned nothing of significance.
Helen had got in touch with her shortly after she arrived in Cannonbridge. Mrs Ingram had given her a list of agency members; one or two had immediately employed Helen to prepare their accounts. Her work had been excellent. She had subsequently been employed by several others on the books; there had never been any complaints.
Mrs Ingram handed the Chief a list of members with a mark against the names of those she knew had employed Helen. ‘I can’t imagine there was ever any question of any personal involvement with any of our members,’ she said with the air of a tigress protecting her young. You’d hardly be likely to know if there was, Kelsey thought, running his eye down the list. Most of the addresses were in Cannonbridge, a few in neighbouring villages.
Yes, Joanne had contacted Mrs Ingram on the morning of Monday, February 28th. ‘She phoned to ask if she could come round to see me,’ Mrs Ingram said. ‘I saw her at twelve o’clock.’ She showed the Chief the entry in her desk diary.
She had given Joanne much the same information as she had just given the Chief. She had later heard that Joanne had phoned every man on the agency list and had called to see two or three. ‘She was certainly thorough,’ she said with a note of respect. ‘But as far as I know, none of them was able to tell her anything very much. None of them had had any dealings with Helen for two years or more.’ It had been her private opinion that Helen had probably gone off to London or some provincial city, that Joanne didn’t stand much chance of coming across any recent traces of her in Cannonbridge.
The afternoon sun was still warm as Sergeant Lambert drove over to Martleigh; there was a welcome temporary lull in the holiday traffic.
Earlier in the afternoon Arnold Lockyear had duly telephoned to learn the findings of the post mortem. He had made no comment on the results, had merely confirmed that he would be attending the inquest later in the week.
According to the lengthy statement he had made on Sunday, after his visit to the mortuary, Lockyear had had no contact of any kind with Helen after she left Thirlstane Street four years ago. Nor had he had any kind of communication from Joanne since she had gone off to look for Helen at the end of February. In neither case had he expected any contact. ‘I dare say you’ll hear this from others,’ he told the Chief, looking at him with weary resignation, ‘so you might as well hear it first from me. I was never on what you would call very friendly terms with either of the girls.’
Arnold’s mother had died when he was twenty, and his father had married Mrs Mowbray, a widow, seven years later; her daughters, Helen and Joanne, were at that time aged eight and four. ‘I did my best to get on with them all,’ Arnold told the Chief. Things had gone along well enough until the death of the second Mrs Lockyear a few years later. She was a woman of some refinement, fond of reading and music, very different from the robust, down-to-earth countrywoman his father had married first time round. The second Mrs Lockyear had fussed over her daughters, dressed them in artistic clothes she made and embroidered herself, encouraged them to think of themselves as talented, likely to make a place for themselves in the world beyond the domestic hearth. Her new husband humoured her, charmed by his luck in snaring this unlikely bird of paradise. Arnold was living at home, working in the shop – he had worked there ever since leaving school. He had felt himself an outsider in the new family circle. It was then that he had taken on the allotment, had begun to spend his spare time digging and hoeing, planting and weeding, in fair weather and foul.
Perhaps if the marriage had lasted longer Lockyear senior might have ceased to humour his new wife to the same extent, but three years after she walked out of the register office on his arm she was abruptly taken off by a rapid disorder of the blood. Her husband couldn’t believe she would die. Right up until the last moment he had fought against the idea, had refused to countenance it. He was knocked sideways by her death. Certainly there was never any question of his going out to look for any successor to her.
He was determined to look after his stepdaughters with every possible care. He went next door and asked Mrs Snape if she would come in daily to cook and clean, keep an eye on the domestic side of things in general, watch over the two motherless girls. She had readily agreed.
Things continued in this fashion for another four years and then Lockyear himself died, dropping dead from a heart attack one afternoon as he was unloading the van after a trip to the slaughter-house – right there in Thirlstane Street, in front of the shop, standing by the rear doors of the van, with Arnold helping him to unload.
After that it was just Arnold and the two girls, Helen now almost sixteen and Joanne twelve. In Lockyear’s will everything had been left to Arnold; house, business, furniture, savings. There was a clause instructing Arnold to pay over by way of dowry the sum of three thousand pounds to each girl on the occasion of her marriage or at the age of thirty if she should still be unmarried at that time. In addition Arnold was charged with continuing to provide a home in Thirlstane Street for both girls for as long as they should require it.
‘What happens to the dowry money now?’ Kelsey had asked. It seemed it would pass to Arnold. Certainly not a fortune, Lambert mused, though many men had killed for a great deal less. He had no idea if Arnold was in any way strapped for cash, how well the shop was doing.
‘I certainly didn’t drive either of the girls out of the house,’ Arnold had said with some heat. ‘Whatever you may hear from others.’ It was true that shortly after his father’s death he had made some alterations to the way the household was run; that was surely only to be expected. He had informed Mrs Snape that her services would no longer be required. ‘After all,’ he told the Chief, his brown eyes steady and unflagging, ‘Helen was rising sixteen. Some girls are married at that age, running a house and looking after a husband, entirely on their own. I didn’t see why she shouldn’t buckle down to a bit of housework. I felt it would do her good, she’d have to learn how to manage a home one day. And Joanne was old enough to help. They were both strong, healthy girls. I couldn’t see that it was any great hardship.’
