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The Four Marys
Part 1 The Four Marys
Part 2 The
Four Marys Part 3 The
Four Marys Part 4 The Four Marys Part 5 The Four Marys Part 6 The Four Marys Part 7 The Four Marys Part 8
The Four Marys - A Murder Mystery
By
Paul Norman
Part Four (You can access the other parts from the main menu)
Chapter
Seven
Tuesday
At a
little after seven thirty, Mike stood looking in the window of the
SPCK bookshop in the corner of the bus station square, wondering why
a bookshop would choose to sell only religious books and tracts,
altar candles and bibles. It was a captive audience, obviously, there
had been a branch in Gloucester, and he had gone in there one day to
see if there were any titles suitable for his school prize, which had
been for English Literature. The manager had spoken to him, asking
him if he had “fire in his belly, and a passion for God”, and
showed him a small section of classic English literature titles, but
nothing had appealed, and he had asked why they didn’t carry more
popular titles. “All chosen by the powers that be, we have no say
in what is stocked,” the manager had told him, and Mike supposed
the same must be true of this branch.
To the
left of the SPCK bookshop was a public house, and then the road,
Danestrete, where the Locarno Ballroom and the newly opened bowling
abbey stood. To the right there was another, empty shop, and then a
very narrow shop selling LP records. Hanging in the window was a
record featuring Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence. Mike had spent
one summer, a few years ago, reading English playwrights, and had
borrowed the entire works of Noel Coward from Gloucester City
Library, and had loved everything he read. He had heard a few of
Coward’s songs on the radio, they often played them on Two-Way
Family Favourites, and he particularly liked Coward’s clever lyrics
and his clipped way of enunciating every word very clearly and
concisely as he sang his own songs. He decided there and then that he
would purchase the record, which was called simply “Noel and
Gertie”, as soon as he was off duty and the shop was open, which
would probably be Saturday.
A bus
pulled in from the right, past the pub, and he saw that it had come
from Hitchin. Sure enough, Martha Baker was on it. She was about to
wave at him when she saw he was there, waiting for her, but realised
at the last moment that she was not supposed to know him, and she got
off the Hitchin bus without a word and made her way to the stop for
the green Routemaster that would take her to the Hyde.
Around
a dozen people got on the bus, including Martha and Mike, but none
answered the description she had given him at the hospital. However,
as the bus pulled into the Hyde car park, Mike spotted a man wearing
a leather jacket standing in the gap between the off licence and the
hairdressers’ shop, where the precinct ran through to Elmes’
hardware shop. Martha got off the bus, leaving Mike and one other
person, an old lady carrying what appeared to be a very heavy
shopping bag. Mike took the bag and hopped off the bus, offering her
his hand to help her off too.
‘Whereabouts
do you live?’ he sked the old lady.
‘Foxfield,
right opposite,’ the old lady said. Mike glanced across at Martha,
who had already started to walk through the shops towards Hydean Way,
where she lived with her Aunt in her father’s house. There was
little traffic about, so he carried the old lady’s shopping for
her, saw her safely across the road and into her house, then crossed
back into Hydean Way, where he saw Martha, a hundred yards or so
ahead, and perhaps fifty yards ahead of him was the man in the
leather jacket, whom he swiftly overtook. He produced his warrant
card from his trouser pocket and showed it to the young man.
‘Excuse
me, Sir, would you mind stopping and answering a couple of
questions?’
When
he caught up with him, Mike could see right away that it was a man in
his mid-twenties that he was talking to. He looked at Mike in
complete astonishment, and started to run back towards the Hyde, but
Mike stopped him, produced his warrant card from his trouser pocket
again, and gave him a quick caution.
‘I’m
a plain-clothed police constable, D.C. Thompson. You followed that
young lady home off the bus last night, she reported you and I’m
investigating why. You were following Nurse Baker tonight,’ he said
accusingly. ‘You were waiting for her to get off the bus at the
Hyde, I saw you. Now we can do this down at the station, or we can do
it right now, right here, and I hope you have a good explanation.’
‘I
can explain, officer,’ the man said. He looked to be just a few
years older than Mike, possibly mid-twenties; he had short,
sandy-coloured hair that could almost be termed ginger, and matching
eyebrows and beard. His pale brown eyes were penetrating, but not
unfriendly. His height was exactly as Martha had described it. He
certainly did not look like a rapist, but then who could tell
nowadays?
‘Go
on.’
‘My
name is Barney Cottingholme-Cole. A long, unwieldy name, I know, but
Cottingholme is an extremely old family name. I tend to go by the
name of just Barney Cole, it’s not so pretentious…’
‘Wait
a minute. Cottingholme? That’s Nurse Baker’s original name.’
Barney
nodded. ‘I know. She’s my sister. She has been missing for
several years, and my father, our father asked me to see if I could
find her. Late last week I tracked her here, to Stevenage, and last
night I nearly plucked up the courage to knock on her door and
introduce myself, but I bottled it at the last minute. Tonight I was
going to give it another go.’
‘You
know where she lives?’
‘Here,
in this road. I don’t know the number. That’s why I was following
her. Probably never will now, because you’re going to arrest me for
following her, I imagine.’
‘Can
I see some ID? Driving licence, for example?’
Barney
Cole took his wallet from his inside pocket and fished out his
driving licence, which indeed confirmed his name as Barney
Cottingholme-Cole.
‘The
family name is Cottingholme-Cole, my mother is Mary Cole, and she
married my father, Sir Matthew Cottingholme. Same initials, you see,
both M.C. My sister’s name is Mary Cole too, named after my mother,
but I managed to find out that she goes by the name of Martha Baker.’
‘Right.
If what you’re saying is true, then we’ll go and knock on her
door and you can tell her what you’ve just told me.’
‘I’m
perfectly happy to do that if you’re with me. You know where she
lives, then?’
Mike
had memorised Martha’s address from her police file. He couldn’t
wait to hear what Barney Cottingholme-Cole had to tell Martha about
his attempt to find her and meet up with her. He would have written a
letter first, if it had been him in this situation.
‘Come
on. We’re almost there.’
They
crossed the road and Mike went to number 43 and rapped loudly on the
door. It was a three-bedroom semi-detached house with climbing roses
attached to a neat piece of trellis beside the front door. Each of
the three windows at the front was adorned with clean, nicely
patterned net curtains. After a delay of around fifteen seconds,
Martha opened the door. Her eyes widened in alarm as she saw the two
men standing there.
‘Can
we come inside, Martha? I’m convinced Barney means you no harm.’
‘Barney?’
‘Please?
Best we do this inside, otherwise the neighbours…’
‘Of
course. I’ll put the kettle on, make some tea. The living room is
through there.’ She ushered them inside, but still looked anxious.
She
pointed to a door on the right. There was a two-seater sofa, old but
serviceable, and two separate but not matching armchairs. A picture
showing a country lane scene with a farm house at the end of the lane
hung above the fireplace. There was a coffee table, on which was a
pile of women’s magazines, Woman, Woman’s Weekly, Woman’s Own,
Peoples’ Friend, and a bookcase in the corner by the front window
containing a number of well-read paperback books, a two-volume
encyclopedia and a Pears’ Cyclopedia for 1955. Beneath the window
was a battered old gramophone on which lay a number of LP records.
With his trained policeman’s eyes, Mike noted that the topmost LP
was the soundtrack to West Side Story, one of his own favourites. On
the opposite wall was a sideboard, similar to the one Mike’s
parents had owned, an old utility sideboard from the war years that
had used to contain bottles of National Health Orange Juice and Cod
Liver Oil one side, and his father’s bizarre collection of spirits,
with names such as Drambuie, for example, in the other side.
Mike
and Barney took an armchair each. After a few moments, Martha
returned with a tray on which there were three mugs, a teapot, a jug
of milk, a pot containing sugar cubes, and a plate of chocolate
digestive biscuits.
‘Right,’
Mike said, taking the proffered cup of tea, helping himself to milk
and a biscuit, ‘this man claims to be Barney Cottingholme-Cole,
which is your original name…’
‘How
do you know that?’ Martha demanded with a frown.
‘We’ll
come to that later, shall we? He claims to be your brother. That’s
as much as I know. Now I suggest we let him do the talking…’
Barney
took his cue. ‘I discovered a few months back from an ancient aunt
that I had a sister, born seven years after me, who was put up for
adoption for some reason, whilst I was at boarding school, and I set
out to find her. That particular year, I wasn’t allowed home for
the summer holidays, ostensibly because my – our parents had gone
off on a round the world cruise. You’re my sister. At least, I
believe you are. I was plucking up the courage to come and knock last
night after I followed you home off the bus, but I got cold feet at
the last minute. Suppose you turned me away with a flea in my ear?
Suppose you didn’t believe my story?’
‘How
do I know you are who you say you are?’
‘I
can easily prove who I am, I’ve already shown my driving licence to
Constable Thompson. I spent the first ten years of my life at
boarding school, and never saw my parents until I was in my
mid-teens. For one reason or another, your and my paths never
crossed, and I didn’t even know that I had a sister. My mother was
mysteriously absent all those years ago, for the best part of a year,
obviously she was giving birth to you at the time. I didn’t see her
much in those days anyway, being at boarding school myself, just the
odd weekend and the summer holidays. My father came down occasionally
and gave me some excuse about Mother not being well or away visiting
with some relative or other. I didn’t pay much attention at the
time, we’re not close or anything like that, but when I started to
think about tracking you down, I realised she’d been missing for
most of the year in which you were born. They obviously didn’t want
me to know anything about you. I don’t know why you were abandoned,
given away, I mean, and that’s not why I’m here, to take you home
to the family pile, or anything. I still live with my parents – our
parents, when I’m not at work, that is. I’m supposed to be at
school right now, I’m a teacher, but I bunked off at the beginning
of the week to come and look for you, having finally traced you here
to Stevenage. They think I have the ‘flu. I was supposed to be back
at school today, but I haven’t had time to get in touch with them.
I’m staying in a B and B in the Old Town, and there’s no phone.’
‘School
being?’
‘New
Hall School, Chelmsford. Is that important?’
‘You
need to inform them where you are, in case they’ll have reported
you missing,’ Mike said, making a note in his notebook.
‘You
can use the phone in the hall,’ Martha said.
Barney
returned a few moments later and picked up his mug of tea. It was
still warm, still drinkable. They were not speaking to each other
properly, and Mike guessed that it would take quite a while for
Martha to come to terms with the fact that she had an older brother
who still lived with her birth parents. If she even cared. It was bad
enough to have been sent off to boarding school by her parents. He
would understand completely if she wanted nothing to do with Barney
Cottingholme-Cole.
‘Barney
– Mr Cole, do you think it would be an idea if you were to make
tracks now, make an arrangement to come back and talk to Martha
sometime in the future when she’s had time to get used to the fact
she has a brother? Just a thought? It must have been something of a
shock for her. I can arrange to be here when you return, if Martha
wishes?’
‘I
need a drink,’ Martha said abruptly, standing up and going to the
sideboard.
‘Barney?’
Mike said. So Martha Baker kept bottles of alcohol in her sideboard,
just as his father had done.
‘Of
course. I’m sorry to have frightened you last night. That was never
my intention. I just wanted to get to know my little sister.’
Mike
thought he saw a tear forming in Martha’s eye, and put his hand in
his pocket to produce a tissue, but she wiped it away with her hand
and smiled thinly. ‘I would like to see you again, but you are not
to tell our mother and father where I am, not ever. If you do, I
won’t ever see you again, and I’ll move away, somewhere you can’t
find me. Do you understand?’
‘Of
course. If you give me your phone number, I’ll ring, make some
arrangement to come back, next week, next month, whenever you’re
ready. Thank you for seeing me, Martha.’
She
showed him to the door after writing down the telephone number for
him on a piece of paper, and Mike heard the door click as she closed
it. He watched Barney Cole walk back down the street towards the
Hyde.
‘Do
you want me to go?’
Martha
shook her head. ‘It’s been a bit of a shock. I was convinced he
was the rapist, it really frightened me. Are you off duty now? Has
your shift finished? Would you like a drink?’
Mike
held up his hand. ‘No, thanks. But I’m on duty again first thing
tomorrow. There’s been a murder down at the George the Fifth
playing fields. I’m to attend the post mortem tomorrow morning.
I’ll need a clear head. It’ll be grim, she was there for a
fortnight before someone found her this morning.’
Martha
grimaced. She opened the sideboard door to reveal a number of
bottles, sherry, whisky, brandy and rum. She took out a glass and
poured herself a generous measure of whisky, then sipped it quietly.
It occurred to Mike that Martha seemed hardened to the taste of
strong alcohol, especially at her young age, but it was not his
business. All the same, he would have preferred it if she hadn’t
been drinking right now.
‘How
did you know my original name was Cottingholme?’
Mike
saw no reason to lie. ‘I read your file. At the nick. It’s quite
thick.’
‘Checking
up on me?’ Martha frowned. ‘Why was my real name in my file? I
didn’t tell the police anything about that when I was arrested.
I’ve already told you, I don’t want to know about the people who
abandoned me. I didn’t tell them my birth name, so why is it in the
file? And why were you reading it anyway?’
‘I
wanted to know all about you.’
‘Why
is my original family name in my police file?’ she asked again.
‘I
have no idea. I’m new to Stevenage, just came up here from
Gloucestershire. Someone at the nick must have made enquiries about
you when – when you were arrested. I read some of the notes in the
file…’
Martha
sat on the chair opposite to Mike’s. ‘Then you’ll already know
I’m a wild child. But maybe you won’t know why. One weekend, at
school, there was a parents’ do or something. Founders’ Day,
Sports day or something like that. My parents, or rather the people I
thought were my parents, Edwin and Winifred Baker, came to the
school, and you can guess what happened. My friends, the girls I
relied upon to keep me on the straight and narrow, realised they
weren’t my real parents because they were second-generation
Jamaican-English, and I was excluded from just about everything after
that. Ostracised. Edwin and Joyce are coloured, you see. Unthinkable!
Obviously they’re not my real parents, but when they turned up at
my school, the damage was done. I started drinking, I started
smoking, I even made enquiries from one of the sixth formers about
getting hold of some drugs, though it never came to anything. I more
or less had to buy myself back into their affections, which wasn’t
easy, let me tell you. Girls at a private boarding school can be real
bitches, believe me! The drink was enough, really. Anyway, it all
came out, from Mum and Dad, who I was, what my name was – they’d
already changed it to Martha Baker, and I vowed never to use my real
name ever again. How could they do it? Why did they do it? You know
they’re titled? Sir Alastair Cottingholme-Cole and Lady Mary, his
wife, the woman who abandoned me. I know she’s my mother, my birth
mother, but I don’t really know that he’s my real father.’
Mike’s
eyes widened suddenly. It hadn’t occurred to him that her mother
had played away from home with another man. It was a possibility.
‘I
guess you come across people like me all the time.’ She laughed
shortly. ‘Expelled from boarding school, drunk and disorderly,
shoplifting, is there anything I’ve forgotten, or does that cover
it all?’
‘Why?’
Mike asked softly. ‘Why do you do it? I can understand why you’re
angry with them, but surely you can put it behind you? Move on, sort
of thing? If you’re determined not to have anything to do with
them, surely you can forget all about them? You’re not doing
yourself any favours by getting a reputation like this. What about
your nursing career?’
‘Spoken
like a policeman,’ she said bitterly. ‘I never saw them after I
turned thirteen, my real parents. They paid the school fees, made
sure I never wanted for anything, got me a good education, and I’ve
been told there’s a monthly allowance and a bequest waiting for me
when I’m twenty-one, but I’m not going to touch it, I don’t
want their money. I imagine they felt guilty. But they abandoned me!’
Her eyes blazed with a sudden fury. He wanted to go to her and take
her in his arms and comfort her, but he didn’t think her mood would
countenance that. She didn’t know him well enough, not yet.
‘I’m
sorry,’ he said. ‘It must have been awful not seeing your real
parents for so long. Did you ever make any attempt to find out where
they were, or why they did it, like Barney has?’
She
shook her head. Her golden-blonde hair shook in the soft evening
sunlight, which was fading fast. ‘No. As soon as I found out I was
abandoned, then put up for adoption, I vowed never to find them,
never to see them. I hate them,’ she finished quietly. ‘What’s
different about Barney that they kept him but got rid of me?’
Mike
could now think only of the obvious reason, that her mother had had
an affair, and that her father, Barney’s father, was not her
father. But he kept it to himself. It had evidently also occurred to
Martha.
‘I
should leave you to it,’ he said, glancing at the clock on the
mantelpiece, which said 8:25. ‘I have an early shift, like I said.’
He stood up and went to the door. She was watching him all the while.
On impulse, he said, ‘Can I see you again?’
‘I’d
like that,’ she said in little more than a whisper. ‘But you
don’t know what you’re getting into…’ Her hazel eyes were
watery with tears that had not yet formed fully.
He
ignored that last remark. ‘Great. I’ll see you tomorrow, at the
hospital, if you’re on shift. You can show me where the mortuary
is. If not…’
‘You
won’t like me. Not when you get to know me. You already know what
I’m like,’ she said, standing up. She reached up and planted a
gentle kiss on the side of his mouth, and his heart soared. ‘You
really won’t like me. I’m not the girl next door, I’m not
fucking Sandra Dee, for Christ’s sake!’ Her eyes were wild with
anger again, suddenly, as though someone had touched a nerve and she
was remembering the circumstances of her birth. ‘And yes, I’m on
shift tomorrow. Early shift like you.’
‘Not
too much more whisky, tonight, then,’ he suggested, wondering why
she had mentioned Sandra Dee. But then, she was someone who looked a
lot like Sandra Dee with a great deal of Brigitte Bardot and a young
Marilyn Monroe thrown in for good measure. For very good measure, in
fact. Mike felt his eyes drawn again to her angelic face, but he was
also conscious of the fact that she had a very good figure. Her
breasts weren’t large, but they were large enough; but then he
didn’t particularly like large-breasted girls anyway. Her curves
were in all the right places, and he had already noted the flare of
her waist, the beauty of her legs and her arms, which were bare.
Standing before him in her flared skirt and pretty lemon-coloured
blouse, all he could think of was that she had to be the one the
Ouija board had earmarked for him. How many girls called Martha could
there be in Stevenage New Town, he wondered.
‘I’ve
only just got started, don’t you worry. Aunt Joyce won’t be home
till ten-ish. I’m going to listen to some music and get very
drunk…’
‘I
wish you wouldn’t,’ he said, touching her arm softly, and feeling
the thrill of a mild electric shock run through his hand, but knowing
already that he didn’t know her well enough for her to take any
notice of what he said. They had only met just a few hours before. ‘I
have to go now. I’ll see you tomorrow. Try and think about
something other than getting drunk.’
‘Like
you, for instance?’ Martha said, and slid her hand around his neck,
pulling his mouth to hers. He could feel her small, perfectly formed,
firm breasts pressing against his chest, and relaxed into the kiss,
which was delightful and heart-stopping. For him.
‘That’s
enough for now. To be going on with. If you’re really hell-bent on
getting to know me, that is. I’ll see you tomorrow, Constable,’
she said, and her sweet breath, mingled with the faint taste of the
whisky, was soft against his cheek. He wished he could stay, but knew
that he shouldn’t and in any case, he got the distinct impression
that she wanted to be on her own. Except for the whisky, that was.
Reluctantly, he went to the front door and opened it.
‘Your
adoptive mother, Winifred Baker. You don’t talk about her, you
didn’t mention her much. What happened to her?
Tears
again formed in Martha’s eyes. ‘She died. Four years ago. Cancer.
She was lovely. I miss her, I miss having her to talk to. She
probably would have set me straight,’ she said wistfully. ‘Aunt
Joyce is alright in small doses. She’s very strict!’
Martha
Baker smiled and waved him goodbye, then shut the door. He wanted to
look back, but he was afraid that if he did, she would be standing at
the window with her glass of whisky in her hand, drinking, and she
would most probably have lit a cigarette, too. There had been no
evidence of smoking in the house, no ashtrays, no packets of
cigarettes, leastways not in the front room, but she was, after all,
a wild child. And knowing that she had been given up for adoption
after her thirteenth birthday, by parents who were extremely
well-off, who could blame her. Who could know what was going on in
that pretty head of hers? The Four Marys continues in the
May issue...
The
small print: Books
Monthly, now well into its 24th
year on the web,
is published on or slightly before the first day of each month by Paul
Norman. You can contact me here.
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