Chapter 10
Campbell drove Alexander and Jeff to the end of Weir Alley, which was a narrow walkway between the cobbler’s shop on the one side and a hardware store on the other. The mingled smells of polished leather and cut timber, wax, and paraffin[1] was, thought Alexander, a delightful combination which was so very quintessentially English. The hardware store had a paraffin pump which was operated by a token purchased at the counter to dispense exactly a gallon. There was electric lighting in the centre of the village, and at Heywood Hall, but many outlying cottages and farms still operated with the efficient Tilley lamp, or more basic paraffin lamps in barns, and as often as not a paraffin stove to keep livestock warm, and in the outside toilet, even if baths might be taken in front of the kitchen fire. Hot and cold running water was not a given in rural parts of the country, and Alexander had yet to see a gas fire replacing coal and wood anywhere. Save, no doubt, at Fourwinds, which would probably cook on gas and have underfloor heating all from a sewerage treatment plant of its own, since David took such things to greater lengths than most. It had almost got the family killed when the house was Foursquares, but then, one might hope that David would not be hiring another greedy drug-dealing chemist as housekeeper.
It was a shorter cut to the river than lover’s lane, though by no means as attractive, lacking the overhanging trees and honeysuckle branches which draped over the wall one side and fence the other of lover’s lane, from the grounds of the grammar school for boys on the one side, and an empty property on the other. The grounds of the empty house, and doubtless the house itself, contrary to warnings and caveats from parents, was a kind of wild playground for the local children. It was unlikely, however, that the board school children, on holiday before the grammar school, had seen anything useful.
“The path really is overgrown,” said Alexander, as they fought their way down to the riverside. “I did wonder if it was worth canvassing the residents in the High Street to see if anyone had been looking out of the back window, but the bank of the river is so overgrown they’d be hard put to even see that there is a path. I doubt that even Irma’s scarlet hat and jacket could be seen.”
“Speaking of which, is that her hat?” said Jeff, pointing. The scarlet tam o’ shanter lay sadly in a bush, at head height, probably plucked off during her struggles to survive.
“Campbell, nip back to the bridge where Mrs. Reckitt stood, and see what you can see,” said Alexander. “Here, Jeff, strangle me.”
“What a tempting request,” grinned Jeff. They struggled together, and Campbell rejoined them.
“I couldn’t tell if you was fighting or rutting like bunnies,” he said. “Or wevver you was male or female. There’s a ruddy great branch in the way.”
“And I wager that our killer was well aware that the spot he chose was as private as one might be,” said Alexander. “Look at the speed of the river, he wouldn’t even have to drag her up to the weir. There’s concrete sides where she could have been battered by the river before being carried across to the weeds where she fetched up.”
“Well, now we know a bit more, and corroborate witness statements,” said Jeff. “This whole path is an invitation to a murderer.”
“It wants more than goats or Oliver,” said Alexander. “I’ll have a word with the vicar, and see if we can’t get people out by this afternoon. And nothing else we can do here; we might as well get back for breakfast.”
Ida discussed breakfast without waiting for the men, and having discovered that the bicycle she had owned before they had to let out the Hall was still in working order, she cycled into the village. If she was a little wobbly at first, she was confident by the time she got into the High Street, proving that you never forget how to ride a bike. She came to a halt outside the butcher’s shop, and wheeled her bike down the passage between the shop and the fishmonger next door, open for fresh fish at one end before it became a chippy for lunch and in the evening. There was a small back garden where Ida left her bike, knocking on the back door, where she was swiftly admitted.
Nancy Thruppence did not make appointments, save for going out to clients; she worked on a first come, first served basis.
“Come on up, I’ve tea on the go, and I’ll just latch the door up so people can come in,” said Nancy, a buxom red-head. Ida suspected that much of the startling shade of hair owed more than a little to a bottle, but it suited Nancy. The salon she used overlooked the street above the butcher’s shop, with a bay window and chairs in it for those waiting to look out on what was happening. Ida asked for a shampoo and set, as that would give her the opportunity to hang around while her hair dried under the dubious efficiency of the hood dryer. Ida had a hand-held dryer at home, and was quite capable of dealing with her own hair, but the gossip mill would prove invaluable, especially if she became a regular, and therefore invisible.
Nancy greeted her next customer, a spare woman with her hair in a bun.
“Doris! I do wish you’d let me shingle you, you have such a nice shaped head.”
Doris shook her head.
“I’d do it in a shot, to have it easier to care for, but Wilfred won’t hear of it. You know how men are, ‘I won’t have my wife give up her crowning glory to look like those hussies in magazines.’”
“Ooh, they are behind the times, all of them,” said Nancy. “I had to lay down the law to Thruppence to get my salon set up, and only because he likes the convenience of the hood dryer when he washes his hair does he really accept it. What can I do for you?”
“A trim; I cut it shorter myself, and he grumbled that it’s untidy.”
“Can I make a suggestion,?” said Ida, from inside the froth on her head where Nancy was shampooing her. “If you have it neatened at the ends but so it hangs about your face, and say that Nancy had to cut it that short to make it even, he won’t like that, and you can suggest a regular bob and get him used to it being shorter.”
“Ooh, that is a good idea,” said Nancy. “This is Ida, Doris; come back home.”
“Between going off to Oxford,” said Ida.
“I’ll do it,” said Doris. “I was thinking of having it done a bit shorter each time, but that’s a reel good idea.”
Soon Ida was installed under the dryer with a magazine she had picked up at random, to seem not to be prying. Doris was having a drastic trim, and a couple of other women were waiting, one looking out of the window while the other read ‘The People’s Friend,’ a Scottish story magazine.
“I do not believe it!” said the one at the window.
“What’s that?” asked the other. “Goodness, how some people mess with food! This one has what it calls bacon olives; put stuffing and gravy on thin slices of bacon, roll it up and cover it in oatmeal or batter and fry.”
“Sounds nice,” said Ida. “Party food.”
“Well, it is February, it might go down well for Valentine’s day,” said the reader.
“Never mind bacon, look out there!” said the one at the window, sounding scandalised. “It’s Vi Savin, and it looks like she’s coming here!”
The reader cast aside her paper, and leaned towards the window. Ida wriggled out from under her hot hood and joined them.
The unmistakable golden head teetering as Mrs. Savin tottered on her high heels was indeed turning down the alley.
“How she has the nerve!” whispered the former reader. “Nellie, she is coming here!”
“It might just be that she’s clinging to a routine,” said Ida.
“Oh, my dear! She only comes here to be done up for her fancy man,” said the reader, Ida thought her name was Edna.
There was the sound of feet on the stairs, and Violet Savin came in, flushing to find all eyes on her.
“What?” she said.
“I want to offer you sympathy; I was a Girl Guide with Irma,” said Ida.
Violet scoffed.
“And a lot of good that did her,” she said. “The wretched girl even kept her diary in Morse code so I couldn’t read it anymore.”
“Why, Mrs. Savin! That might help the police if she recorded who she had seen,” said Ida.
“Like I care; I threw it away with all her clothes,” said Mrs. Savin. “God! What a tiresome girl she was. I’m just figuring out how good it is to be free of her.”
She seemed indifferent to the horrified silence which settled on the other clientele. Nellie gave Ida a significant look. Edna picked up her magazine again.
“This sounds more wholesome, turnip soup with sago; and leftover meat rissoles with rice. That makes a change from making them with potato,” said Edna, as if this was the most important thing in the world.
“That’s a good idea for rissoles,” said Ida. “I must see Mr. Reckitt and order this magazine if it generally has such good ideas.”
“They were advertising the new Bird’s Custard Powder last month,” said Nellie. “Suggested slicing banana, covering it with jam, and then pouring made up custard on it.”
“I don’t know that you’d even have to bother with jam,” said Edna. “I got some of that custard, and some broken biscuits, and I served up the biscuits broken more and a few raisins with the custard over and the kids et the lot.”
“Kid’s’ll eat anything as long as it’s sweet,” said Nellie. “Mind, this new custard is a good way of making not enough go round by adding a good dollop of custard to half a serving of any pudding.”
“I never eat a dessert with a meal,” said Mrs. Savin.
“Oh, that’s how it is, is it?” said Nellie. “Reckon it shows that you need sweetening.”
“I reelly don’t know what you mean,” said Mrs. Savin.
“Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it?” said Nellie. “Can’t even say anything civil about your pore dead girl, no, nor be civil and show proper feeling to this poor lass who was a friend of your Irma and in Guides with her. And now you’re off to your fancy man without a thought for your poor husband.”
Violet Savin flounced.
“Him! Theodore has no more feelings than a goldfish has; he eats, goes to work, eats and sleeps. He has no idea of deeper feelings, or how the artistic muse has to deal with upset to the household.”
“That would hold better if you hadn’t already said you were glad your daughter was dead, or that’s what you as good as said,” said Nellie.
Violet turned a pointed shoulder, getting out a cigarette holder.
“Not in here, you don’t,” said Nancy, sharply. “I got peroxide and the like for your highlights, and it explodes. I’ve seen you flicking ash without caring where it goes.”
Violet Savin sighed, shrugged one shoulder delicately, and put aside her smoking paraphernalia.
Ida was glad that Mrs. Savin would be last; she had a chance to get home before the woman did, to tell Alexander and Jeff that they needed to search the household dustbin.
At last her hair was dry, and she paid Nancy.
“I’ll maybe be back for you to do my nails, but they are still recovering from digging up Saxon monks,” she said, gaily. “Not as exciting as Egyptian tombs, but we discovered that some of them would go skating on the ice; there were bone skates.”
“Well, I never!” said Nancy. Ida suspected she would use the same tone if Ida had told her a recipe, if she confessed to murdering children to make mince pies, or if she declared that the king had been seen dancing with the prime minister.
Ida skidded into the house.
“You have to go and search Mrs. Savin’s dustbin now!” she said.
“It ought to be done only with a search warrant,” said Jeff.
“Why?” asked Alexander.
“Irma kept a diary in Morse code,” said Ida. “Mrs. Savin, who is, by the way, going to see her lover in Oxford, said she had thrown it away.”
Alexander leaped to his feet.
“We’re on our way,” he said. “Jeff! Nine out of ten people leave their dustbins on the roadside in plain sight. It counts.”
“You’re right,” said Jeff. “Do they have a collection around here, or only middens?”
“There’s a collection in the village on a Monday,” said Ida. “I asked Mary on the way up.”
“Good; anything she threw out should still be there,” said Alexander. “What a wicked waste if she threw out all the girl’s clothes.”
“I doubt she did,” said Ida. “She’s the sort of woman who speaks out from spite, and lies as often as she speaks the truth. But we have to act on the information, in case she did.”
They fairly flew over the hump-backed bridge over the railway line.
“Look, she’s on the platform,” said Ida. “Goodness look out, there’s Edgar Thripp not looking where he’s going.”
Edgar was cycling to the station, and wobbled as the car went the other way on the narrow street. Alexander stopped, and cranked down the window.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine!” said Edgar. “I wanted to visit the Bodleian for a reference. I’m writing a book about Village Life; it’s a comedy of manners but I do want to check a few things.”
“Don’t forget that John Fringford, landlord of ‘The Clene Shepe’ is a local historian, and so is his sister, Mary, my housekeeper.”
“Thanks!” said Edgar. He ran into the station with his bike.
“I wronged him,” said Alexander. “I thought he was a layabout, sponging off his aunt, but if he’s writing a book, then he is working, even if he is sponging off Miss Thripp.”
“You don’t like him,” said Jeff.
“He’s a spiff, which is more or less what you thought me to be,” said Alexander. “And it wouldn’t surprise me if he did drugs and got involved with dealers when he was at Oxford. However, it’s not my business unless he thrusts it in my face.”
