8 #4
‘Co-founder, my foot!’ Janet snorted. ‘Monty set it all up and paid for everything. And if Deborah was a friend of hers, she had a funny way of showing it. Always bad-mouthing her behind her back.’
‘Really?’
Janet scowled. ‘Oh, she was all sweetness and light to Monty’s face.
It was all “Oh yes, Amelia, I can do that,” and “I’ll get on to that right away, Amelia” and sucking up to her.
Made me sick to watch. But in the office, after Amelia left, she used to make fun of her.
The Trust Fund Tart, she called her then.
Or Daddy’s Headache. Walking Trouble. And a lot worse. ’
‘Wow! Sounds as if their relationship was toxic. I wonder how they came to get together? I seem to remember reading that Deborah Simmonds was a fair bit older than Monty?’
‘Yeah – the cow was in her forties, I suppose. She spoke a bit like Monty, you know, posh, and she lived in a nice area and had a nice car, so I suppose she was sort of upper crust-ish. Not like Monty was though – not a proper aristo, know what I mean? But I dare say they moved a little in the same circles.’
‘Yes. Is that how she and Monty came together, do you think?’
‘I dunno – it beats me why Monty chose her to run the show. I never trusted Deborah as far as I could throw her. To me she was an obvious phoney. But then’ – she shrugged – ‘I suppose she needed someone to help her do all the day-to-day routine stuff. Stands to reason someone like Monty wasn’t going to waste her time in an office all day. ’
Lyssa got the feeling that Monty had been placed on a pedestal all those years ago by the teenage Janet and, because of her death, had never had the chance to leave it since. It was a feeling that left her both sad and oddly comforted.
‘What happened to the YMT after Monty died?’ she asked next. ‘My research stalled after that. I couldn’t find any references to it anywhere. I assumed it just petered out?’
‘It petered out pretty damn fast, if you ask me,’ Janet said promptly. ‘One minute, me and some other girls were being looked after – you know, flat, doctors, training, a little money helping to pay the bills, and the next – poof, all of it gone. The office closed, no more money, no more nothing.’
‘And from what you say, you think that was Deborah’s fault?’ asked Lyssa.
‘Well, that Deborah cow wasn’t going to bust her gut to keep it going, was she?
Too lazy for one thing. Besides, there’d be nothing in it for her, would there?
Believe me, that one always had an eye out for the main chance.
She only took the role on for what she could get out of it for herself.
You know, trading on the fact that she was working for a lord’s daughter, or whatever.
Pathetic. But nasty with it. You ask me, she was the one who got her hands on whatever money was going. ’
‘You mean from the charity?’ Lyssa squeaked, shocked.
‘Sure – and anything else worth having. Probably sold all the office furniture too for all I know. Wouldn’t put it past her.’
Lyssa thought about that for a moment. It was clear that Janet hated Deborah, so she needed to treat her statements with some caution.
‘But surely Monty’s family would have swooped in and reclaimed any and all assets?
’ she pointed out mildly. ‘In my experience, the rich are always very good at making sure they get what’s coming to them. ’
At this, Janet laughed sardonically. ‘Yeah – ain’t they just?
’ She sounded both bitter and admiring in equal measure.
‘And sure, maybe they did, for all I know,’ she admitted candidly.
‘But from what I remember, her family never had much to do with her. It was like, once she moved in with Glen, and got her name in the papers for being a party girl and all that other guff they printed about her, it was like she was giving off a bad smell. You know, too much for their hoity-toity little noses to cope with. And it wasn’t as if the YMT was a big deal – not on their scale of things, I mean.
Just this one little office, and the likes of Deborah Simmonds running the day-to-day stuff.
Nothing major. I doubt it would have been worth the solicitor’s fees to make a song and dance about it.
No, you ask me, it was that cow Deborah Simmonds who somehow walked off with whatever it was that was going. ’
‘Any idea how much that could have been?’ Lyssa asked curiously.
‘Hell no. I was just one of those holding out their hand for charity, weren’t I?
’ she said rancorously. ‘But I can tell you this much – Monty meant business, and she was putting her own money where her mouth was. And she was helping a lot of girls by now. Couldn’t have been cheap, and there always seemed to be plenty in the kitty.
And another thing – I reckon I wasn’t the only one who had Deborah Simmonds’ true measure, neither. ’
‘Oh?’ Lyssa’s internal radar bleeped loudly. She’d always had an instinct for when something really meaty was about to be uncovered.
‘Yeah. I remember, after the funeral – Monty’s, I mean – I was standing outside the churchyard gates.
I didn’t go into the church or nothing like that,’ she qualified hastily, ‘it was all too big a deal. They wouldn’t have let me in anyway, I suppose.
What with the press, and Monty’s family deigning to show up, and all the Lucky Cuckoos and the Bannisters and whatnot.
A right circus it was. Fans of the band everywhere, even some coppers making sure it all went off smooth like.
No, I just hung around on the outskirts and cried my eyes out.
It felt like I was the only one there who really mourned her, you know?
I dare say that sounds really big-headed, but that’s what it felt like at the time.
Her parents were all stiff upper lip and snooty sods.
The boys in the band looked more relieved than anything.
And as for the Bannisters – well, everyone knew they’d been suing Monty about Glen’s Will and hassling her about it, for months.
I doubt anybody there really cried for her. ’
‘Except you,’ Lyssa pointed out softly.
Janet Connor swallowed hard. ‘Yeah. Well, I might not have known her for as long as they did, but she changed my life, and that counts for a lot, don’t it?
’ she said, sounding defensive. ‘She was there for me when I was really desperate, so I suppose I felt guilty for not being there for her when she was the one who was feeling desperate. But I didn’t know, did I?
How could I?’ Her voice rose a little as she looked at Lyssa appealingly.
Lyssa leaned forward and gently touched the top of her hand. Her knuckles felt hard and knobby with arthritis. So here was someone else who didn’t think the accidental death verdict had been the right one. ‘You think she committed suicide, don’t you?’
Janet shrugged. ‘I dunno. I don’t like to think of it, but somehow . . . I just dunno. Maybe it was an accident,’ she said, her voice utterly unconvinced.
‘Did Deborah Simmonds accept the accidental verdict?’ Lyssa asked, sensing the poor woman was near to tears.
‘Her!’ Janet snorted, her eyes flashing with anger.
‘Of course she did. Or at least, pretended to. It was all, “Oh, poor Amelia, what a dreadful thing to happen. And on the day after her birthday too.” As if that mattered. And, “I do think ponds should be fenced off or have some netting put over them or something. They can be so dangerous, can’t they?” It made me sick listening to her. ’
‘I suppose she attended the funeral? As an official mourner?’
‘Oh, try and keep her away! Dressed in black, like an old crow. I saw her, trying to hobnob with the Montroses. But they weren’t having any of it,’ she said, her face creasing in a satisfied smile.
‘I suppose their kind can sniff out social climbers and the likes of Deborah Simmonds a mile off. You have to hand it to ’em.
And, like I started to tell you before – I’m not the only one who was on to her, and what she was really like. ’
‘Yes – what about that?’
‘Yeah. Well, like I said, after the funeral I was hanging around outside the churchyard, and I saw some young chap waylay her and they got into a right old ding-dong. Oh, not the noisy kind, the ones that draw everyone’s attention.
There was no shouting or pushin’ and shovin’.
No, they just had their heads close together and were sort of hissing quietly at each other, the way people do when they’re furious but have to keep a lid on it.
But I could tell Deborah was livid – she had a face on her like a thundercloud!
’ Janet laughed suddenly at the memory. ‘I wish I’d been able to get close to them to hear what they were saying.
That bloke looked ferocious, I mean, like he was ready to tear her head off. ’
‘Do you know who the man was?’
‘No – not for sure. But I’ve always reckoned it was one of them. The Bannisters.’
Lyssa blinked at this. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because the man looked a lot like Glen, and he had a couple of brothers, didn’t he? If I was a betting woman, I’d have laid odds on it being one of them.’