‘Was she back by four?’
‘Yes, she came in about ten to.’
‘Did you speak to her?’
‘I didn’t have much time, I had to rush off. I told her to make herself a cup of tea, and to be sure to drop the latch when she left. She was the sort you could go off and leave in the house without worrying about what she might get up to. She was as honest as the day. You can always tell.’
‘Did she tell you how she’d got on that day? If she’d decided what she was going to do?’
‘I asked her if she’d had any luck. She just said: Nothing special. She still hadn’t made up her mind about going back to Martleigh that evening. She said she had another two or three leads to follow up, she’d be going after them in the next hour or two, then she’d make up her mind.’
‘How had she done her hair that day?’
She looked startled at the sudden switch. ‘The same as every other day, just long and straight.’
‘Did she ever wear anything in her hair? A ribbon or a comb, perhaps?’ Caught up in the tresses of Joanne’s long dark hair was a large decorative hairslide with the catch open. The slide was of heavy quality polystyrene, white veined with green; it had a fancy curved top
Mrs Huband shook her head. ‘I never saw her wear anything in her hair.’
‘What time did you get back home that Wednesday evening?’
‘About ten o’clock. She’d taken all her things – she only had the one bag with her, a duffel-bag. She’d left everything nice and tidy, the house properly locked up.’
When they left Mrs Huband’s they went straight along to the hostel but the Warden could tell them nothing further. Helen Mowbray had never had any contact with the hostel and Joanne had neither shown up again or phoned, after her visit on the Tuesday afternoon. Nor had she mentioned, during that visit, the names of any contacts she hoped to see the following day.
They called next on a Miss Gallimore who had phoned the station to say that Helen Mowbray had at one time lodged with her. Miss Gallimore was an old woman, white-haired and fresh-complexioned, with an air of having seen better days; she lived in a run-of-the-mill red-brick semi in a side street not far from the centre of town. She took them into a sitting room with a great many faded family photographs in ornate old frames ranged on top of the piano and along the mantelshelf.
Helen had come to lodge with her almost exactly four years ago, when she had first come to Cannonbridge. She had been the sole lodger; Miss Gallimore never took more than one girl at a time. Helen had stayed about a year; thirteen months, to be precise. She had been a very satisfactory lodger, always paying promptly, clean and tidy, pleasant and polite, quiet and hard-working.
Miss Gallimore’s recollection was that Helen had worked for agencies when she first came to lodge with her, then she had had one or two spells of working for a particular employer, with some freelancing in between. She was able to give them the names of two employers: the Cannonbridge branch of Wyatt Fashions, and Fletcher’s Plastics, on the industrial estate.
Kelsey asked her if Helen had had any men friends. Yes, she had, that is, she had gone out sometimes in the evenings or at weekends and Miss Gallimore had assumed it was with some man or other. She had never brought anyone to the house, had never mentioned anyone. ‘I didn’t ask her personal questions,’ Miss Gallimore said. ‘It’s never been my way, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have welcomed it. She wasn’t a chatty girl.’
Why had Helen decided to leave after thirteen months?
‘We didn’t have any disagreement or anything like that. She was beginning to do quite well in her little business and she felt she could afford a place of her own. She told me she’d seen a furnished flat she liked.’ Miss Gallimore hadn’t seen Helen again after she left. ‘I can give you the address of the flat,’ she added, ‘but it’s not much use your going round there. The house has been pulled down, they’ve put up some flats there. You probably know the place – Holmwood, the house was called, on the Tappenhall Road. It had a big garden.’
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