In a Dry Season (29 page)

“Come in, love.” She led the way into a bright, cluttered room. Dust motes spun in the rays of sunlight that lanced through the panes of the mullioned window. “Can I offer you anything?” she asked, having settled Annie in an armchair so soft and deep she wondered how she'd ever get out of it. “Only, I usually have elevenses around this time. Coffee and a Kit Kat. Instant coffee, mind you.”

Annie smiled. “That'll be fine, thanks, Mrs Poole.”

“Alice. Call me Alice. And why don't you have a look through this while I see to things in the kitchen. Your call got me thinking about the old days and I realized I hadn't had it out in years.”

She handed Annie a thick, leather-bound photograph album and headed for the kitchen. Most of the deckle-edged black-and-white photographs were family groups, what Annie took to be Alice and her parents, aunts, brothers and sisters, but several were village scenes: women stopping to chat in the street, baskets over their arms, scarves knotted on their heads; children fishing from the riverbanks. There were also a couple of pictures of the church, which was smaller and prettier than she had imagined from Stanhope's
painting, with a squat, square tower, and of the dark, brooding flax mill, like a skull perched on its promontory.

Alice Poole came back holding a mug of coffee in each hand and a Kit Kat, still in its wrapper, between her teeth. When she had freed her hands, she took the chocolate bar from her mouth and put it on a small coffee-table beside her chair. “A little indulgence of mine,” she said. “Would you like one? I should have asked.”

“No,” said Annie. “No, that's fine.” She accepted her coffee. It was milky and sweet, just the way she liked it.

“What do you think of the photos?”

“Very interesting.”

“You've come about poor Gloria, then?”

“You've heard?”

“Oh, yes. Your boss was on telly last night. I don't see very well, but there's nothing wrong with my ears. I don't watch a lot of television, but not much local news slips by me. Especially something like that. How horrible. Have you got any suspects yet?”

“Not really,” said Annie. “We're still trying to find out as much as we can about Gloria. It's very difficult, what with it all being so long ago.”

“You don't say. I was seventy-five last birthday. Can you believe it?”

“Quite honestly, Mrs—sorry, Alice—I can't.” She really did seem remarkably spry for a woman of that age. Apart from a few liver spots on her hands and wrinkles on her face, the only real indication of the ravages of age was her sparse and lifeless hair, which Annie was now coming to believe had probably fallen victim to chemotherapy and not yet grown back properly.

“Look,” Alice pointed out. “This is Gloria.” She turned
to a photograph of four girls standing beside a Jeep and pointed to the petite blonde with the long curls, the narrow waist and the provocative smile. Without a doubt it was the same girl from Stanhope's painting. Underneath, in tiny white letters, was written,
July
1944
. “This one's Gwen, her sister-in-law.” Gwen was the tallest of them all. She wasn't smiling and had half turned away from the camera, as if shy about her looks. “And this one here is Cynthia Garmen. The Four Musketeers, we were. Oh, that one's me.” Alice had been a svelte blonde, by the look of her. Also in the photograph, standing in the Jeep behind the girls, were four young men in uniform.

“Who are they?” Annie asked.

“Americans. That one's Charlie, and that's Brad. We saw quite a lot of them. I don't remember the names of the other two. They just happened to be there.”

“I'd like to make a copy of that photo, if you don't mind. We'll send it back to you.”

“Not at all.” Alice detached the photograph from its corners. “Please take care of it, though.”

“I promise.” Annie slipped it in her briefcase. “You knew Gloria well?” she went on.

“Quite well. She married Matthew Shackleton, as you probably know, and while he was away at war, Gloria and Gwen, Matthew's sister, became inseparable. But quite often the gang of us would do something together. Anyway, I wouldn't say we were the best of friends, but I did know her. And I liked her.”

“What was she like?”

“Gloria?” Alice unwrapped her Kit Kat and took a bite. When she had swallowed it, she said, “Well, I'd say she was a good sort. Cheerful. Fun to be with. Kind. Generous.
She'd give you the shirt off her back. Or make one for you.”

“Pardon?”

“Magic fingers. Gloria was such an expert sewer you could give her rags and she'd turn out a ball gown. Well, I might be exaggerating a little, but I'm sure you get my point. It was a skill in much demand back then, I can tell you. There wasn't a heck of a lot in the shops, and your clothing coupons didn't go very far.”

“She worked at Top Hill Farm, didn't she?

“Yes. For Kilnsey. The lecherous old sod.”

“Do you think there was anything funny going on up there between him and Gloria?”

Alice laughed. “Kilnsey and Gloria? In his wildest fantasies, maybe. Nellie, his wife, would have had his guts for garters if he'd so much as looked twice at another woman. And Gloria . . . well, she might have been generous in some ways, but she wasn't
that
generous. Old Kilnsey? No. You're barking up the wrong tree there, love. He was one of them serious religious types that always look like perverts to me. Probably need more religion than the rest of us just to keep their unnatural urges down.”

Annie made a note of the name. In her experience, that repressed type was more likely to lose control and kill than most. “What kind of things did you do together?”

“The usual. Gloria was impulsive. She'd suggest a spur-of-the-moment picnic on Harksmere bank. Or a film at the Lyceum in Harkside. It's been converted to the KwikSave last time I saw it, but back then it was a popular place for lads and lasses to meet. Or walking in the fields at night during the blackout. And swimming.” She lowered her voice and leaned forward. “Believe it or not, dearie, we
once went swimming without costumes in Harksmere Reservoir after dark. What a time we had of it! That was Gloria's idea, too. Spontaneous. She didn't like everything all planned out for her, but she always liked to have something to do or to look forward to doing.”

“Did she tell you anything about her past?”

“She never spoke much about that at all. From what little I could gather, it must have been very painful for her, so I just thought if she doesn't want to talk about it, then that's all right with me. All she said was that she lost her family in the Blitz. She did sometimes seem very distracted. She had deep, quiet, sad moods that would just come on her out of nowhere, in the middle of a picnic, at a dance, whatever. But not often.”

“How did she fit into village life?”

“Well,” said Alice, “I suppose that depends on your point of view. At first she wasn't around very much. Land-girls worked very long hours. After she'd married Matthew and moved to Bridge Cottage we saw a bit more of her.”

“Did she have any enemies? Anyone who had reason to dislike her?”

“Quite a few people disapproved of her. Jealous, if you ask me. Gloria didn't care what people thought of her. She went in the pubs by herself, and she smoked in the street. I know that's nothing now, love, the street's the only place you
can
smoke in some places, but back then it was . . . well, to some people it meant you were nigh on being a prostitute. People had some funny ideas back then.” She shook her head slowly. “They call them the good old days, but I'm not so sure. There was a lot of hypocrisy and intolerance. Snobbery, too. And Gloria was far too cheeky and flighty for some people.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Betty Goodall could never take to her. Betty always was a bit of a snob, and a bit too high church, too, if you ask me, but she's a good soul underneath it all, don't get me wrong. She has a good heart. She was always just a bit too quick with her moral judgements. I think she fancied Matthew Shackleton for herself, and I think it rather put her nose out of joint, Matthew marrying Gloria. Like I said, Gloria was free and easy in her nature, besides being a real ‘stunna,' as they say in the papers these days. I think a lot of women were just plain jealous of her.”

Annie smiled. From Alice's description of Betty Goodall, she could imagine what a time Banks would be having up in Edinburgh. “Betty Goodall wasn't in the photograph,” she remarked.

“No. Betty and William had gone by then. He was some sort of dogsbody with the Home Guard, and they kept sending him from council to council. Not fit for real war work, apparently, and no one could quite figure out what to do with him.”

“Do you know if Gloria actually
did
anything to merit such disapproval, or was it simply because of her nature, her personality?”

“Oh, dear. You want me to tell tales out of school?”

Annie laughed. “Not if you don't want to. But it
is
a long time ago, and it might help us find her killer.”

“Oh, I know, love. I know.” Alice waved her hand. “Just let me get my cigarettes. I usually have one after my elevenses, one after lunch and one after tea. And perhaps one with a nightcap before bed. But never more than five a day.” She got up and brought her handbag over, fiddled for a packet of Dunhill and lit one with a slim gold lighter.

“Now then, dearie, where was I?”

“I wanted to know if Gloria had affairs, slept around.”

“Certainly no more than a lot of others did then, ones you'd generally consider ‘nice' girls. But people made a lot of assumptions about Gloria just because she was a free-thinking woman and spoke her mind. She definitely was a bit of a flirt, there's no denying that. But that doesn't mean anything, does it? It's just a bit of fun.”

“Depends on who you flirt with.”

“I suppose so. Anyway, I may have been naïve, but I think there was more smoke than fire. Most of the time.”

“What did you think of Matthew?”

“Not very much, to tell you the truth. There was always something just a bit too smarmy and cocky about him for my taste. Oh, he was nice enough on the outside, handsome and charming, and one had to feel sorry for what happened to him later.”

“What happened?”

“Killed by the Japanese. Over in Burma. Anyway, Matthew was a big talker. I also heard he got more than one lass in the family way before Gloria came on the scene, while he was a student in Leeds. So he was no saint, wasn't Matthew Shackleton, though to hear some speak you'd think butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Some folk said she only married him because he was a bright, handsome lad with a great future ahead of him—which seems to me like a very good reason to marry someone. I'm sure he made her all kinds of promises about how wonderful their future would be. He filled her head full of dreams of the many things he would build and the far-off exotic lands they'd visit and all that rubbish. Underneath it all, Gloria was a romantic. I think she fell in love with this new world
Matthew painted for her. The bridges and cathedrals he was going to build, and her by his side. She was impatient for it all.”

“How did Gloria take his death?”

“She was heartbroken. Devastated. I was worried about her and I mentioned it to Gwen once or twice. Gwen said she'd be okay in a while, but then Gwen didn't look too good herself, either. Very close, they were, her and Matthew. Anyway, when Gloria started to go out again, she was more devil-may-care, you know, the way some people get when they feel they've nothing left to lose. A lot of people were like that then.” She paused and took another drag on her cigarette, then fiddled with the chain around her neck.

“So Gloria started going out again, to dances and things?”

“Yes, a few months later.”

“When did she form her relationship with Michael Stanhope, the artist?”

“Oh, he'd always been around. He was at their wedding. Gloria spent a lot of time with him. Used to drink with him in the Shoulder of Mutton. That's another reason those religious types disapproved of her.”

“Did you know Stanhope?”

“Just to say hello to.
Michael Stanhope
. I haven't thought of him in years. He was an eccentric. Always wearing that floppy hat of his. And the cane. Very affected. There's was no mistaking that he was an
Artist
, if you know what I mean. I can't say I had much time for him, myself, but I think he was harmless enough. Anyway, he wouldn't have had anything to do with Gloria. It was all just a show.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was a homosexual, dearie. Queer as a three-pound note, as we used to say. Anyway, as you probably know, it was illegal back then.”

“I see. Would it surprise you to know that a painting of Gloria by Michael Stanhope
did
show up?” Annie asked.

“It did?”

“Yes. A nude. It's in Leeds City Art Gallery.”

Alice put her hand to her mouth and laughed. “Well, bless my soul. It is really? A nude? Of Gloria? Still, I can't say it really surprises me. Gloria was never really shy about her body. I told you about the swimming party, didn't I? I'm not much of a one for art galleries, but I must go see it next time I'm in Leeds.”

“What
was
their relationship?”

“I think they genuinely liked one another. They were friends. Both of them were outsiders, free-thinkers. On some strange level, they
understood
one another. And I think she genuinely
liked
him and respected him as a painter. Not that she was an intellectual or anything, but she responded to his work. It touched her in some way.”

Annie could understand that. Over the years, her father had had many female friends who genuinely admired his art. No doubt he had also slept with some of them, but then Ray certainly wasn't homosexual, and it didn't mean the women hadn't respected him as a painter, too. “Was she involved with anyone in particular after her husband's death?” she asked.