Part 12 (1/2)
”And someone doesn't want Henrietta to know who she is?” responded Crosby brightly.
”Don't strain yourself thinking too hard, Constable, will you?”
”No, sir.”
”She tells us she is going to be twenty-one in April,” con-tinued Sloan, ”and I think she has been correctly informed on this point, but April would be too late for the killing of Grace Jenkins for two reasons...” He waited hopefully for Crosby to enumerate them.
Crosby said nothing.
”Two reasons,” went on Sloan in a resigned way. When he got back to Berebury he would look up the leave schedules to see when Sergeant Gelven was coming back. They weren't going to solve anything at all at this rate. ”One of them is that the girl would have been back from college by then.”
Crosby nodded in agreement.
”The other is...”
”Daylight,” said Crosby unexpectedly.
”Exactly. By April the last bus would be getting to Larking in the twilight rather than the sort of darkness you can easily run someone down in. There's another thing...”
Crosby c.o.c.ked his head like a spaniel.
”This wedding...”
”She wouldn't let them get married,” said Crosby. ”That chap Hibbs told us that.”
”Have you thought why not? Thorpe's a nice enough lad by all accounts...”
They were right in the centre of the village now and he and Crosby knocked on the door of the house of the last perknown to have seen the late Grace Edith Jenkins alive.
”That's right,” said Mrs. Martha Callows, not without relish. ”I reckon me and Mrs. Perkins was the last to see her. On the last bus, she was, same as we were.”
She admitted the policemen into an untidy house, knocked a cat off one chair, scooped a child out of another and inthem to sit down.
”The last bus from Berebury?” asked Sloan with the air of one anxious to get everything clear.
”There aren't any other buses from anywhere else,” Mrs. Callows said, ”and there aren't all that many from Berebury. If you miss the seven five you walk.”
”Quite so. Was it crowded?”
”Not after Cullingoak. Most people get out there. Get down, you.” This last was said to the cat, which, thwarted of the chair, was settling on the table.
”Where did you get out?”
”The Post Office. That's the only stop in Larking. We all got out there. Me and Mrs. Perkins and her.”
”About what time would that have been?”
”Something short of eight o'clock.”
The cat had not, in fact, troubled to get down and was now investigating some dirty plates which were still on the table.
”You'd been shopping?” said Sloan generally.
”Sort of. Mrs. Perkins-that's who I was with-her husband's in hospital. That's why we was on the late bus. Visiting hours. 'Course, we'd been round the shops first... Berebury's a long way to go for nothing.”
”Quite so. Had Mrs. Jenkins got a shopping basket?”
”Now I come to think of it,” said Mrs. Callows, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her face in recollection, ”I don't know she had.” Her face cleared suddenly. ”But then she wouldn't have, would she?”
”Why not?” enquired Sloan with interest.
”Friday's her day for Berebury. Not Toosday. She goes in Fridays, regular as clockwork. Always has done.”
”Not Tuesdays?”
Mrs. Callows shook her head. ”Not shopping.”
”I see. Tell me”-Sloan was at his most confidential- ”tell me, was she her usual self otherwise?”
A wary look came into Mrs. Callows's eye. ”Yes, I suppose you could say she was.”
Sloan tried another tack. ”Cheerful?”
”I wouldn't say cheerful meself. Polite, of course, hoh yes, always very polite was Mrs. Jenkins, but not what you'd call cheerful.”
”Talkative sort?”
Mrs. Callows shook her head. ”Not her. Never much to say for herself at the best of times but take Toosday f'r'instance. 'Good evening,' she says. 'We could do with a bit better weather than this, couldn't we? Too windy.' And pa.s.ses right down the bus to the front and sits there by herself.”
”Kept herself to herself?”
”That's right. She did.” Mrs. Callows reached out absently and gave the cat a cuff. It retreated but only momentarily.
”She didn't tell you how she'd spent the day?” asked Sloan.
Mrs. Callows sniffed. ”She wouldn't tell us a thing like that. She wasn't the sort.”
”I see.” Sloan reverted to officialese. ”We are naturally anxious to trace Mrs. Jenkins's movements on Tuesday...”
”There I cannot help,” said Mrs. Callows frankly. ”Neither of us set eyes on her until we got to the bus station.”
”What about afterwards?”
”When we got back to Larking, you mean?”
”That's right.” Sloan waved an arm. ”Other people, for instance. Was there anyone about?”
She shook her head. ”We didn't see anybody else, but then we wouldn't, would we?”
”Why not?”