CHAPTER 43
I can’t stop thinking about what Annette told me yesterday. That’s two of their friends group who have now been murdered. I think of Rosemary. Is there a more suspicious reason why she’s gone away?
‘You look tired,’ says Josh the next morning at breakfast. ‘You fidgeted all night. Are you okay?’
I watch as he puts a bowl of food down for Solly and ruffles his fur affectionately. He has taken over Solly’s morning feeds and it warms me that Josh has bonded with the dog, despite not really wanting one.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, sipping my coffee.
‘Are you worrying about Dorothea?’ He turns to face me, leaning against the worktop, one leg bent flamingo style.
‘No,’ I lie, but he doesn’t look convinced.
His expression softens. ‘I know things have been a bit … tough between us lately,’ he says to my surprise.
Josh doesn’t usually like to admit when things are wrong.
‘It’s been an adjustment living here and especially in the shadow of the arson and everything, but …
I do love you, you know. I know we haven’t really talked much about marriage but I was thinking … ’
The coffee curdles in my stomach. A few years ago I’d have been elated at this, but not now.
The realization hits me like a punch.
I don’t want to marry Josh.
He walks over to me and kisses me. I tense. He notices because when he pulls away I see confusion, and maybe fear, in his eyes. ‘I better go,’ he says. ‘I’ll be late for work. I’ll see you later.’
‘Yes, see you later,’ I reply woodenly.
When he’s gone I breathe a sigh of relief.
As I’m getting changed my phone rings. ‘Is this Imogen?’
‘Yes.’
‘My name is Esme. You spoke to my granddaughter, Scarlett, last week.’
Excitement bursts through me. ‘Yes, that’s right. I was asking about Dorothea Roe.’ I sit on the edge of my bed.
‘Dorothy Falkner as she was then,’ Esme corrects me. ‘She lived next door to me in the mid-1970s. Her and her husband, Bobby.’
Finally, someone who knew Bobby.
I hurriedly explain that Dorothea left me her house and now I’m trying to find out exactly how she died. ‘I was just wondering what you remember. About Dorothea – Dorothy – and her husband.’
‘I was already married with a second baby on the way when they moved in, so it must have been around 1975. She was probably five or so years younger than me,’ she says loudly and without a pause, and I get the impression Esme doesn’t have many conversations and is relishing this one, ‘and Dorothy was friendly to me, but her husband was standoffish. Very handsome. But kept himself to himself. Yet the things I heard from the other side of that wall …’
I hold my breath.
‘He was a wrong ’un, that husband of hers.
I’d hear him shouting at her late into the night.
Accusing her of this and that. As soon as they wed, he made her give up her job and I could see how bored she was, drifting around the house all day.
We would chat when we bumped into each other and she told me she had dreams of doing something creative and that she missed working at the factory.
She admitted to me once that marriage wasn’t what she thought it would be.
Their rows got worse and she started standing up to him and, well, it was a bad business, but he hit her.
She tried to hide it from me but I saw the signs. ’
So it was true. He was abusive.
I think again of the Zippo lighter. Not Rosemary’s then, but definitely Bobby’s.
It’s not surprising Dorothea had been so intent on portraying domestic abuse in her sculptures.
In her art. Why else would she set up an art therapy centre for traumatized women?
Why else would she have bonded so strongly with Annette, Maisie and Rosemary?
All women who had suffered some form of domestic violence.
Why else would she have helped me and my mum?
‘Do you remember Bobby leaving?’ I ask Esme.
‘Pardon, my love? You need to speak up. The line’s bad.’
‘Did Bobby leave her?’ I shout.
‘She came to me and admitted that they’d had a huge row one night and he’d walked out.’
‘Did he ever come back to the house?’
‘No. Not that I saw anyway. There was talk around the village that he’d done a runner. He didn’t turn up for work. He just seemed to vanish into thin air.’
A dark feeling presses down on me. ‘So, nobody ever saw him again?’
‘There was talk he’d gone abroad. Had another family. But who knows. And no. Nobody saw him again. Not after he walked out on Dorothy.’
‘And what happened to their house?’
‘It belonged to the council, back then. There were all kinds of rumours about Bobby. That he was involved with gangsters, that he owed money, that he was a bad ’un.’ She laughs drily. ‘I was just glad for Dotty. Her life was so much better without him in it. So much better.’
And yet it seems he had come back. To kill Dorothea.
When I’m in the garden washing the dirt from Solly’s paws after our morning walk, my phone buzzes again. I let Solly go so that I can answer it and he runs into the middle of the terrace and shakes himself dry.
It’s Annette.
‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t talk to you properly yesterday,’ she says. She sounds much more composed today. ‘I had just found out about Maisie and I was in bits. I still am. But the shock. You know.’
‘I totally understand, Annette. It’s just dreadful news.
I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.
’ I take a deep breath. Part of me still isn’t convinced I’m doing the right thing, but I’m getting nowhere with this sculpture and Annette might be able to help.
Especially if she is also in danger. And then I’m going to have to tell DI Shirley about its existence.
What if I’m withholding evidence? I couldn’t live with myself if anyone else got hurt.
‘Um, Annette. I haven’t been completely honest with you. ’
She takes a deep breath.
‘I didn’t know who to trust,’ I say. ‘I still don’t, not really. But I need your help.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘Dorothea left me some co-ordinates after she died. And they led me to a bunker in her woods. In that bunker was a piece of artwork. A papier-maché sculpture.’
There is a shocked silence at the end of the line.
‘Annette?’
‘Yes. Sorry. Yes, I’m still here. I’m just very surprised. I thought all her work had been destroyed in the fire.’
‘I think she left this piece back on purpose. And I need your help to work out the clues. You knew her better than anyone.’
‘Clues?’
I explain about the magpies and the trinkets attached.
‘Someone has been looking for this sculpture, Annette. I think whoever killed Dorothea knows of its existence and is trying to stop the truth from coming out.’
‘I’m finding this so hard to believe …’ Her voice sounds small.
‘Did she ever say anything to you about a secret sculpture?’
‘I … I don’t know. I can’t remember. She might have but … I don’t know. When can I see it?’
Is she lying? She sounds rattled.
‘Are you free now?’
‘I’ll be there within the hour.’
Annette is silent as she surveys the sculpture.
She’s slipped a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on and I watch as she examines every detail, gently touching the papier-maché and fingering the fabrics.
She lingers over each trinket, folding back the sleeves of the wool jacket and touching the lace beneath.
I almost expect her to try and undo the buttons of the jacket, but she stops short of doing that, thank goodness. The buttons are just for show.
She shakes her head and takes a step back. ‘I can only surmise. Dotty had such a cryptic mind. I never really did understand her art.’
I point to the brooch. ‘Alison says this belonged to my mum. Do you recognize it?’
She moves closer and presses her glasses further up her nose. ‘The light isn’t very good in here. How Dot managed to work in here is beyond me.’
‘I think she used a head torch. One was left on the bench over there.’
She doesn’t say anything but goes to her handbag and gets out her phone.
‘This will have to do.’ She sweeps the torch over the brooch.
‘No, I don’t recognize it. But these pearls …
’ She touches the necklace at her throat.
‘Is this about me? And the crochet butterfly is Maisie’s.
Dear Maisie. She went through a phase of making them. And the lighter …’
‘Belonged to Bobby, didn’t it? Her ex-husband.’
She spins around to face me. ‘How do you know about him?’
‘It was in the biography.’
‘You’ve read it?’
I explain about the proof.
She frowns. ‘Right. Well, I told you about the postcard Dot found, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, who do you think left it? The author?’
She rolls back on her stout heels. ‘I don’t know.
Maybe. Dotty hated the fact that man was prowling around,’ she says with feeling.
She turns to the miniature Christmas card on the first magpie and slowly prises it open.
‘There’s writing in here. It’s too small for me to read, even with my glasses on. ’
I move forward to take a look, surprised that the card opened. I hadn’t thought to look before.
‘Oh yes. It says … “To Rosemary, Hope you’re keeping well. Bobby”.’
Her face drains of colour. ‘That would be impossible.’
‘Why? The lighter was found in the woods. Could Bobby have dropped it there? Could he have come back to hurt Dorothea?’
Annette moves forward and gently strokes one of the sculpture’s hands. The one covered in red paint.
‘It’s a confession. Oh, Dot.’
A flame of heat rises up my throat. ‘Confessing to what?’
‘Something she didn’t want the world to know, but for some reason she wanted you to know it. You need to understand, Dorothea was like a sister to me. To Maisie and Rosemary too. We’d been through so much together, the four of us. We would have done anything to protect her.’
I feel like I’ve been doused in cold water. ‘Protect her from Bobby? Because he’s come back?’
‘No, my dear, he hasn’t come back. That’s why he couldn’t have sent this Christmas card to Rosemary, unless he sent it before July 1976.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s dead. Buried up on Magpie Hill.’