The Case Has Altered (46 page)

Once she'd told him where to sit, he did so and accepted a cup of tea and a biscuit though he was dying for strong black coffee. It was the house of a smoker, too, worse luck, for there were ashtrays on every surface. Given Mrs. Reese's inclination toward cleanliness, that surprised him. Or perhaps this room was the smoking-zone. Framed photos depicted Dorcas at various stages of her life, and Jury was once again brought up short by the transience of that life. The moments captured by the camera's lens were as insubstantial as shadows and as fleeting as light.

He had called the Reese home before he'd left Lincoln, and so she'd been waiting for him with the Sunday china and a tin of biscuits. He felt a little cowardly to be relieved that over a month had passed since the girl's death, and the worst of Colleen Reese's tears had been shed. Yet, she struck him anyway as a woman who wouldn't let emotions get the best of her.

She said she had told everything she knew about Dorcas “to that Lincolnshire lot” (the Spalding and Lincoln police), but that he—Jury—might be better able to make something of it, “you being Scotland Yard.” This was a much more generous view of Scotland Yard than he was used to.

Sentiment far outweighs honesty in talking about a dead child, and Dorcas's mother was no exception. “She were a good girl, our Dorcas,” had been repeated several times while Jury sat drinking tea. “A good girl, Dorcas,” said Colleen, again. “Sorry I can't say the same for our Violet.” Yet she smiled pertly when she said this, as if Violet had bested her sister in some way. Jury imagined that Dorcas's goodness and the other girl's lack of it had to do more with one being dead and the other living.

With that sentiment expressed, she handed Jury one of the several silver-framed photos, this one of the girls together. Violet was prettier, he supposed, but vapidly so. “ ‘Dorcas shy, Violet sly,' that's what we all said.” She pointed out to him that it rhymed.

Jury smiled and thought it might rhyme but it was hardly accurate. One thing Dorcas hadn't been was “shy.” He carefully advanced on the subject
of her daughter's saying that she was pregnant. Mrs. Reese's face went quite blank, scrubbed clean of emotion.

“That weren't like our Dorcas.”

“I'm sure it wasn't. Probably it was just—” Just what? he asked himself. Just a one-night stand? Just an accident? Can the lost virginal world of childhood be “just” anything?

“Fate,” he said.

Colleen was fully cooperative again. “It's what I told Trevor—that's Mr. Reese—'twas meant to be and who knows but what her saying she was preggers warn't the hand of Fate slapping sense into her. It's the good'uns gets caught, but I expect you know that, being in your line of work. I never wanted her autopsied because I didn't want it getting round that Dorcas—”

“But now we know she wasn't pregnant.”

Colleen pressed the fist holding the balled-up handkerchief to her mouth. “No, but why'd she lie and say she was, that's what I can't make head nor tail of.”

“Perhaps she wasn't lying; it could have been she really believed it. Or, it could have been wishful thinking or a lever to get whatever man she'd fallen for to marry her. It's hardly a new trick.”

Colleen sniffed, pulled herself up in her chair. “Not very clever, that. Well, I don't wonder but that's the reason she got killed. I told Dorcas her making up stories would get her in trouble one day.” A fresh wave of tears swelled, and Jury moved a box of tissues from the table beside him to the one at her elbow crowded with pictures of the past. She thanked him and dabbed at her eyes. “She was rebellious, was Dorcas. Tested the boundaries all the time.”

Jury hid a smile. Colleen must have been reading books about adolescence. Dorcas was a little old to be testing her boundaries. “In what way, Mrs. Reese?”

“Things like not going with the family to Skegness. We done that every year for the last fifteen. Whenever Trevor gets his holiday. Vi, too, now she's been working. It's a sort of tradition, if you see what I mean. We're always down for the same rooms at Seagull's Rest every year. Mrs. Jelley says she always thinks of them as being our rooms, nobody else's,
and she puts us down for next year while we're there. Same room and board for us, never more'n a hundred seventy quid. Can't do fairer than that, I always tell Trevor. . . . ”

Jury let her ramble on about Seagull's Rest, reflecting on Skegness and how unspeakably dull it would be, as routine as home, especially for a young girl who'd be wanting discos or drinking beer on the terrace of a pub, all of these pastimes involving sex in some significant way. How pleasant it would be to stay home and not have Mum or Dad around to tell you what to do or Violet to compete with. He could hardly blame Dorcas for “revolting.” Skegness. Even Jury thought he'd sooner stay home.

“. . . and Dorcas wasn't like Violet. Our Vi always has some young man hanging about. I don't mean to speak ill of my own child, but Dorcas wasn't that pretty, you see. The men weren't after her like they are Violet. That's not her real name; it's Elspeth, after Trevor's mum. But she hates that name, always has, so she ups and tells us her name's ‘Violet' from now on, and ‘not a shrinking one, neither,' that's how she put it; Vi's the clever one.” Here, Colleen set off on a cruise around Violet's many virtues.

Jury let witnesses take their own line. It was in such unguarded talk that they very often gave the game away. Violet with all of her boyfriends, Dorcas with none.

“. . . and you can imagine that made Dorcas a mite jealous.”

“Yet there was some chap, if not actually ‘hers'—one whom she very much cared for.”

Vigorously, Colleen nodded. “I don't think she was lying about that, Inspector. Why, she'd been ever-so-sprightly for weeks a while back, not like herself at all.”

“That's what Mrs. Suggins said. The cook at Fengate. That Dorcas had seemed quite the happy girl, but recently rather glum and nervous. Can you think of anything that would account for these changes of mood?”

Smartly, she shook her head. “Not besides whoever this man might have been, I can't. And whatever he actually did, I couldn't say. And it's true, a week or two before she—died, she'd got awful snappish with us. More like the old Dorcas. What I thought was, her and her young man had a spat. I mean, if there
was a
young man.”

“Yes, I'd say so. I can't believe it was all wishful thinking, but whether he was aware of her feelings, well, that's something else again.” Out in the kitchen, a kettle sang.

Colleen looked over her shoulder. “Never mind, it'll turn itself off. Don't know what I ever did before we had this electric one.”

“Don't let me keep you,” said Jury, starting to get up.

Quickly, she motioned him back down. “No, no. It's finished and Trevor'll be home any moment now. And Violet with him. They always come back about this time for their tea.” She paused and pursed her lips, considering. “Look here, we've plenty for an extra to tea, and police got to eat like the rest of us, so why don't you stay?”

“That's very kind of you, only—”

“Well, I expect your missus is a better cook than I am,” she said with a particular look, a coy movement of her head.

Jury almost laughed. Here was a new straw to grasp at! Jury told her the good news. “I'm not married, Colleen.”

She chirped out a few blandishments, “Good-looking man like you, girls must be blind!” She went on in this vein while Jury considered taking her up on her offer simply to stay longer and talk to husband Trevor and the sister. But the alternative to any talk of substance was they'd spend their time round the dinner table with the mum on and on about Violet's talents, thus far untried by marriage.

Jury thought for a moment, then said, “It's only just occurred to me. Not only could Dorcas have believed she was pregnant, but there is such a thing as a false pregnancy.”

“A
what?”

“Women can actually conjure up a pregnancy. They even have all of the side-effects that come with a real one: morning sickness, bloating, and so forth.”

Colleen's hand was at her cheek, where a pinkish blush spread. “Does it go on, then, for the whole nine months?”

“I don't know; I rather think not.”

“And you think our Dorcas was going through something like that?”

“I've no idea. If she deluded herself that she was pregnant, it shows how much she wanted a child.”

A cutoff laugh from Colleen. “Not her! She was always complaining about her friend Sheila's nappies and her having to get up at all hours night and morning. No, Dorcas was never looking forward to being a mum.”

Jury leaned toward her in his chair. “But she must have been looking forward to something, Colleen. Marriage perhaps. Getting this man she might have thought was the father.” He was interrupted when the front door opened in a flurry of feminine giggles. The grunts (Jury imagined) came from Trevor, the father.

Violet breezed in—the expression really fit, thought Jury, not because she was lithe and limber, but because she seemed insubstantial. She fluttered and floated to various surfaces—the hall table where she roughed up the post to see what had come for her; to the dining room table to see if she liked the look of her tea; to the mirror over the mantel to see if she liked the look of herself. Yes. She tossed her flyaway, weightless light brown hair back over her shoulder. The face was pretty, yet without a hint of character, just as it appeared in the photograph. She was plump, but lacked density. Finally she fluttered to the sofa and fell softly into it like a sack of cinders.

Trevor, his face like a flatiron, had stopped in the doorway and been introduced. Unimpressed by Scotland Yard, he asked only if his tea was ready.

Not so, Violet. She was impressed enough for both of them. “You been talking about Dorcas, haven't you? I'd just like to say it's disgraceful that woman got off with not even a slap on the wrist! I just want to go on record.” She must think Jury was the press.

Mildly, Jury said, “There wasn't enough evidence to convict her. She's probably innocent.”

Violet made a dismissive gesture with her fingers. “It's them as has money that never gets convicted.”

“Vi, we've been talking about”—Colleen looked round to see if anybody was listening—“about Dorcas saying she was pregnant when she wasn't.”

“Maybe it was just another one of her stories is what I think.”

“No, she could have thought she was.” Here the mother lapsed into an
explanation. She had got what Jury had said near letter-perfect. This surprised him; he hadn't given Colleen that high a mark for comprehension.

In her tremulous falsetto Violet said, “Want a baby? Dorcas? Don't make me laugh. Last thing she wanted. Couldn't stand kids, squalling and clobber, that's all they're good for, that's what Dorcas'd say.”

“It doesn't surprise you, then,” said Jury, “that it's not true, her being pregnant?”

“Nothin' surprises me about Dorcas. She was always making up stories. Made me tired, it did, not being able to sort out what was true from what weren't. Not that I lost any sleep over it.”

Colleen said, tearfully, “That's a shame, Violet Reese, not caring about your poor sister.”

“Oh,
Mum
.” Violet sighed as Colleen's tears spilled over.

Wanting to avoid a family fracas, Jury asked, “Did she ever mention anyone, any man in such a way you might think she was intimate, I mean, that she was having sex with him?”

Vi slid down in her seat and laughed in silent heaves. When she finally righted herself, she said, choking on the words, “Since she was in the comprehensive, she had a reputation.”

The scandalized Colleen said sharply, “Violet! Watch your mouth, now.”

“Sorry, Mum.” Looking at Jury she said, “She'd used to talk about nearly every man that way.”

“I don't understand. I thought Dorcas wasn't, well, very attractive to men.”

“ ‘Attractive?' Whoever said you had to be ‘attractive' if you was willing? She was just man-crazy. Sorry, Mum, I don't like to make you feel bad, but he
is
a rozzer—if you'll pardon the expression”—she made a little bow with her head—“and we can't be holding out on police.” She leaned toward Jury. “ ‘Poor Dorcas' is right. She was, I guess you can say, ‘available.' What the kids used to say in school was ‘willing.' ‘Dorcas is willing.' They got that from a book by what's-his-name?” She screwed up her unlined forehead in a semblance of thought.

Jury supplied the name: “Charles Dickens.
David Copperfield
. It's ‘Barkis' there.”

“That's the one! Dickens. There's this old guy who hardly ever speaks. When he wants to propose to the nurse, he sends a message: ‘Barkis is willin'.' Well, it sounds a little like ‘Dorcas,' see?”

Colleen looked pale, pressed a tissue to her mouth, then said, “You've no business dredging all that stuff up, Vi. This is your poor dead sister.”

Violet, having heard that enough in the past, ignored her mum. “I did feel sorry for her. It was the only way she could get a man to pay any attention to her. But I'll tell you truly, not even
that
could get her a man, I mean a permanent one.” She turned her attention to Jury again. “But, see, I could name a few names but that don't mean I'd've named them all.”

“Vi! That's a dreadful thing to say about Dorcas.” A fresh flow of tears came; once wiped away, Colleen said, “I'd better go and see your da gets all his tea.” She got up and left the room.

Jury thought the mother was the only one who was grieved by Dorcas's death and felt a renewed empathy for her. Violet could have told Jury in private about that harsh judgment on Dorcas's life. “Dorcas is willin'.” Had Dorcas been pretty, or seductive, or even sweet and saintly it would not have been so sad; it was her lack of any of these qualities that made her beleaguered sexual history and death so awful.