Arnold Lockyear stood beside his father, with a space of a good couple of feet between them as if he had been determined to mark out the distance separating him from the rest of the family group. He wore a dark suit, a carnation prinked with greenery in his buttonhole; he looked straight ahead, his expression blank and unsmiling.
In the second drawer of the bureau were some paper-backed books: lives of various artists and a history of European art; a number of postcard-size reproductions of famous paintings; some copies of magazines devoted to the arts. And a portfolio of drawings and watercolours, all dated and signed: Joanne E. Mowbray, in a hand that grew progressively less rounded and childish as Kelsey turned the pages. Careful pencil studies of faces, animals, buildings; landscapes and townscapes in line and wash; heads of children in crayon and pastel. They looked competent enough to Kelsey; he wouldn’t have minded half a dozen on the walls of his flat.
In the lowest drawer he found a handful of trinkets, a few pressed flowers, some carefully preserved lengths of satin ribbon decorated with bows, such as might have been used to tie up presents. More photographs: Lockyear senior and his second wife with the two girls on a seaside holiday, all apparently enjoying themselves; Lockyear lying back in a deckchair with a straw hat shading his eyes, Joanne kneeling beside her mother’s chair, talking of her, both of them looking relaxed and carefree, Helen sitting beside them on the sand, absorbed in a book.
Kelsey closed the drawer and went next door into Helen’s room. Dusty sunlight streamed through the panes. A butterfly lay shrivelled on the window-ledge. The bed had been stripped, the mattress covered with an old cotton bedspread. The walls were bare, the wardrobe and chest of drawers empty except for a yellowed lining of newspapers bearing a date some five years ago. In the top drawer of the dressing table, under the lining, were a few blue beads and a torn piece of pink face tissue. In one of the small drawers was a child’s ring with a stone of red glass, and a motto from a Christmas cracker. Kelsey came out of the room and closed the door. He went slowly downstairs.
Sergeant Lambert was standing waiting in the hall; Lockyear was in the kitchen. He had washed, had changed into a dark suit and white shirt. He poured himself a cup of milk from the fridge. He held up the bottle and glanced at the Chief but Kelsey shook his head. ‘Ready when you are,’ he said.
Lockyear drained the milk in a single gulp. He washed his cup, locked up, and followed the two men out to the car.
He took his seat beside Kelsey in the rear. He made no attempt at conversation but kept his head averted, his elbow resting against the window, the outspread fingers supporting his forehead. After some little time Kelsey became aware that he was crying. The holiday traffic streamed towards them, family parties with excited children laughing and waving, dogs staring out through rear windows, blasts of music from radios as the cars swept past.
Some minutes later Lockyear drew a shuddering sigh. He sat up and took a handkerchief from his pocket. He dried his eyes, dabbed at his cheeks. He put the handkerchief away, drew several more trembling breaths and then fell silent. After a brief interval he said in a detached, explanatory tone. ‘They were both wilful, stubborn girls. There was no doing anything with them.’ Neither Kelsey nor Lambert made any reply.
Another minute or two slipped by, then Lockyear said, ‘I don’t suppose I understood either of them.’ He sounded as if he no longer expected any response but was simply expressing his thoughts aloud. ‘Hardly likely, I suppose, me being a bachelor.’ He said nothing more but sat in silence until the car halted outside the Cannonbridge mortuary.
Lambert got out and opened the car doors. Kelsey stepped out on to the forecourt but Lockyear didn’t budge. Lambert stooped and glanced in at him; he seemed to be making an effort to compose himself. Lambert said nothing but continued to look in at him. Lockyear suddenly jerked himself up and out of the car. He stood bracing his shoulders, drawing deep breaths, looking straight ahead.
‘Right then!’ he said with an attempt at briskness. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
When they came out into the mortuary corridor a few minutes later Lockyear was very pale. Tears ran down his face but he appeared unaware of them. He stood stranded in the middle of the corridor; he seemed at a total loss. Lambert put a hand under his elbow and steered him out of the building, down the steps, towards the car.
The Chief took his seat again in the back beside Lockyear. As the car pulled out Lockyear suddenly said, ‘This will finish me. It’ll ruin the business. I know it.’ He dropped his head into his hands.
‘I should have a word with your doctor when you get back to Martleigh,’ Kelsey said.
Lockyear made no reply. They reached an intersection and Lambert turned the car in the direction of the main police station.
Very little time elapsed between the local radio station’s broadcast of the news that Jason Cooney had been found safe and well and its first news flash of the discovery at Stoneleigh of the bodies of two young women. After the police had broken the news to Arnold Lockyear the radio station made further broadcasts, giving details of the two girls. Shortly afterwards the phone calls began to come in.
Among the hoaxers and the nutters were several genuine calls; the more important of these the Chief intended to deal with himself. His first call, a little after eight on Monday morning, was on a Mrs Huband, the landlady with whom Joanne Mowbray had lodged during her brief stay in Cannonbridge; Mrs Huband lived in a terrace close to the railway station.
She was outside, perched on a stepladder, busily cleaning her windows, when they arrived. A plump, motherly-looking woman in late middle age, greying hair twisted into a bun; her print overall was carefully laundered. She abandoned her bucket and wash-leather and took the two men into her spotlessly clean little house.
‘I was that upset when I heard it over the radio,’ she told the Chief, her eyes filled with distress. ‘I’d often wondered how Joanne had got on, if she’d managed to find her sister.’
She had had no other lodger during the few days Joanne had stayed with her. ‘She found it quite comfortable here, and quite convenient, but she couldn’t afford to stay more than a few days.’ She looked earnestly up at him. ‘It’s not that I charge a lot, I wouldn’t want you to think that, but it’s all I have to live on, that and the widow’s pension.’ She pressed her hands together. ‘Anyway, she said she had to be careful with her money, so I told her about the girls’ hostel. I advised her to go along there and see the Warden.’ The hostel was an old-established concern in a residential quarter of Cannonbridge, run by a charitable trust.
Kelsey asked if she knew what success Joanne had had in her enquiries about her sister.
‘At first she was very pleased with what she’d been able to find out,’ Mrs Huband said. ‘She thought she was making good progress.’ She’d been along to two secretarial agencies Helen had worked for and she’d made contact with other people who had known Helen or employed her services. ‘But on the Wednesday morning I could see she was looking a bit down in the mouth. It seemed that everyone she’d come across who’d known Helen had known her some time ago, she hadn’t been able to find anyone who’d known her recently. She was beginning to think Helen must have left this area. She was in two minds about staying on in Cannonbridge at all, she thought she could be wasting her time – and her money. Perhaps she should give up and go back to Martleigh. It depended what she found out that day.’
Joanne had been along to the hostel on the Tuesday afternoon to explain her position. The Warden had told her she could have a bed there any night as long as she let them know before seven-thirty in the evening; if it was later than that, then she would have to take her chance. ‘So she squared up with me on the Wednesday morning,’ Mrs Huband said. ‘She told me she’d