He’d obediently swallowed the tablets, drunk his hot chocolate and drifted peaceably off to sleep. Hilda had strangled him with another home made garrotte. Her reason for getting rid of him so quickly was quite simple. She didn’t want to get fond of him. She had quite enjoyed the company of Mr Smith, and had felt a genuine pang of remorse when he had died. Mr Bartlett had simply been a nuisance, always complaining, never satisfied. He had actually dared to criticise her cooking. In Hilda’s opinion he wasn’t worth keeping. Mr Smith had always eaten anything put in front of him. Mr Morris had all the makings of a quiet, compatible guest. It would be a wrench if she grew to like him and then had to do away with him. This way had been much better. He was gone, buried in the coal cellar next to Mr Bartlett. He hadn’t suffered, and she had yet another bank account to plunder.
Hilda went back into the master bedroom. She had noticed a collection of photographs on the dressing tables. There were a couple of wedding photographs with them, and Hilda studied the faces of the families intently. There was no one amongst them with any resemblance to her Mr Morris. From what she could tell, this branch of the Morris family tended to run to sturdily built amongst their men folk. Hilda’s penchant was for small, frail and slight in her paying guests, they were easier to dispose of.
She wandered back into the living room and flicked on the television. She would be in time for Weakest Link, she liked that. She would sit and shout the answers at the screen, she was in point of fact very clever with general knowledge questions, and she nearly always got them right. She would like to take part on the show, she was sure she could beat Ann Robinson at her own game when it came to trading insults, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to cope if she was voted off as a Weakest Link. And they would reject her at an early stage. She had seen it happen before, someone who was clever and intelligent and knew lots of general knowledge was soon voted off in tactical voting. All of the other contestants would quickly realise she was the best and get rid of her. She settled back, glancing at the clock. Five fifteen. Just in time. The TV screen flickered and the sports results came on. What? Of course, it was Saturday. Hilda had lost track of the days in her headlong flight.
She simply sat there for several minutes, staring blankly at the screen. Sport held no interest for her but she realised she was very tired, too languid to do much. Eventually boredom roused her into action. She jabbed at the remote control and changed channels just as the adverts came on. The first one was for an on-line fashion catalogue, the advertiser was exhorting customers to buy before 9pm tonight for delivery on the next working day. Hilda perked up and gazed intently at the web address, her lips working soundlessly as she repeated it to herself. She went through to the study, the computer was still on, in sleep mode. She pressed enter and it sprang into life. She quickly typed in the catalogue address and studied the screen intently. A plan was forming in her mind. She remembered the disdain in which the waitress at the tearooms had held her as she had sat at the table in her dowdy brown woollen coat. She needed to look the part she was playing, that of a well off mature woman, out and about on her travels.
Hilda let the cursor move over the pages of the catalogue. At first, out of habit, she looked for the cheapest articles. It took her several minutes to realise that she could choose anything she wanted, she wouldn’t be paying for them herself. Hilda had a good eye for colour and style, and she soon chose several stunning outfits and dresses. She moved onto lingerie, she needed more than one change of underwear, and she could get herself a couple of those expensive girdles, give herself a bit of shape. Hilda was wise enough to know that her figure could best be described as dumpy. What else? A couple of pairs of shoes, some comfortable slippers and a decent sized handbag. Hilda usually liked to try shoes on when she bought them but she would just have to risk it this time. If they didn’t fit, she would leave them behind for Susan Morris as a thank you for your hospitality gift.
She scrolled through the pages until she found a page dedicated to luggage. She chose a large wheeled suitcase in a cheerful red tartan, she did like tartan, and it had a matching overnight case. Everything would fit nicely in there. She carefully filled out the checkout details with Susan Morris’s credit card details and hotmail address. Susan had left her account on “remember me” and “remember my password” so all Hilda had to do was open the emails, and get the confirmation that her order would arrive the next working day. That would be Monday morning, there would be no deliveries round here on a Sunday. Hilda wondered if Susan Morris was usually so lax with her computer security, or whether the excitement of a surprise holiday had knocked everything else out of the young woman’s head?
Chapter 7
Barbara Grey parked her car in the car park of the Journey Lodge hotel, and contemplated the façade of the building. This was where the Hopkins woman had slept the night before last. Sunday was Barbara’s rest day this week, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to settle to anything at home. Barcroft was lucky, she thought, he had his wife and children to distract him, and he wasn’t in DI Brent’s bad books either. She allowed her mind to wander for a few moments. She really fancied her team partner Clive Barcroft, but he was a married man. Happily married too by the snippets of information he let slip. She had to be careful not to let her heart rule her head. No good would come of starting an affair, even if he felt the same way as she did which hardly seemed likely.
Barbara was ambitious, and the shock she had had on Friday when Hilda Hopkins had escaped had seriously rattled her. She had come within a hair’s breadth of suspension. Consequently she was prepared to give up her own free time to see if she could track the woman down. It would feel so wonderful to apprehend her. This was personal now.
Barbara wondered which way Hilda Hopkins would have left the hotel. By all accounts she hadn’t left by the lobby, she had disappeared while the police officers were in Reception. Barbara frowned resentfully, she bet they hadn’t been reprimanded, just commiserated with for their bad luck. She was thankful it hadn’t been her though, not a second time.
She locked her car and walked round the side of the building. There was a door along there, but when Barbara tried it, it was locked. It may have been open yesterday though, perhaps when the chambermaids were cleaning the rooms. Barbara walked across the car park, avoiding the front of the building. She scrambled over the low wall with considerably less grace than Hilda had shown, and looked up and down the street. If Hopkins had come this way, which way would she have turned? Well there were only two choices, left or right. She would follow both routes, work her way round from both directions.
Barbara strode purposefully down the road, looking about her keenly. She had no idea what she was looking for, she doubted that the woman would suddenly appear in front of her, she just wanted to try and see if she could retrace some of her steps. Barbara walked down the road, past a café and plunged into the small streets leading down to the canal. There weren’t many people around, certainly there was no sign of her quarry. She came out on the tow path of the canal. They’d found Mr Johnson in the canal. He had floated up from the bottom of the lock much to the consternation of a passing jogger. It was that which had kick started the whole investigation once they had identified the man and discovered the address where he had been living. A plastic driving licence had slipped down through the torn lining of his pocket. Hilda had obviously missed that when she had dumped Mr Johnson’s body in the water.
Hilda had been out when the police had first knocked at her front door, but the next door neighbour had said that there seemed to be a new man there nearly every week just lately. All elderly, all lodgers of “that Hopkins woman, interfering old cow that she is” as the neighbour had bitterly described her.
Well she was not likely to have swum down the canal reflected Barbara. She couldn’t imagine the old biddy rowing herself away in a boat either, the woman was no spring chicken after all. A movement caught her eye, and she watched as a barge chugged
slowly up the canal and spluttered to a standstill. Barbara walked briskly towards it, taking in the fact that canal barge trips took place from here. She waited while the crew went through their mooring manoeuvres, before approaching a young man who had just leapt onto the tow path. She flashed her warrant card and asked if she could have a word.
The man eyed her warily, and gave a perfunctory nod.
“I’m looking for an elderly lady who has gone walk about,” explained Barbara, “I wondered if you’d seen anyone like that on your boat yesterday? Female, elderly, a bit plump, grey hair?”
“We get a lot like that, this time of year,” replied the boatman, “it’s a popular run from here to Neston. We did have some elderly folk on the boat yesterday, but I couldn’t say if your old lady was definitely amongst them.”
“Neston? Is that the first stop?”
“It’s the only stop, we don’t go any farther down the canal than Neston. Just there and back again, not the most exciting journey in the world but it’s a good little earner during the summer months.”
Barbara thanked him, and stood contemplating the water. It would make sense, Hilda Hopkins could have left Midchester on the boat easily enough. The police were watching the railway station and the bus station, but apparently no-one had considered the canal. She might be on to something. She needed to tread warily though, she didn‘t want to draw D I Brent‘s attention to her again too soon, especially if she was mistaken. She made up her mind, she would drive to Neston, and have a look around there. If nothing else, it would be a nice trip out into the countryside.
Hilda had finished her lunch, washed everything up and replaced it all where it came from. Apart from the inroads into the food, she was keen to leave no trace of her incursion. Hopefully the Morris’s would either not notice the missing items, or would think that that Mrs O’Grady, the woman who cleaned for them was responsible. Hilda had no scruples about ruining another woman’s honest reputation.
She returned to the small study. She had the glimmerings of an idea for moving on from here. The owners would be back by the end of the week, she mustn’t get too comfortable. Tomorrow her new clothes would arrive, so maybe by Wednesday, or Thursday at the latest she should be on her way elsewhere.
Hilda looked up coach trips for the over fifties. She came across one company who advertised tailor made trips. They were quite expensive. Their speciality was to collect their customers from home and ferry them to a central meeting point to join the coach before setting off to various venues. Hilda checked the timetable and discovered there was a coach this coming Tuesday. It was a circular tour, taking in several famous gardens and Houses and included a two day visit to Danemouth, a pretty coastal resort. Hilda quite liked gardens, she had worked hard at Merrydown Crescent in order to make sure her front garden was always in immaculate order. The back garden had been something of a wilderness, but that had been all the better when she needed somewhere to bury her paying guests. A grave in the middle of her front lawn would surely have excited comment, even from her dull neighbours.
And this trip included a visit to the seaside, that would be wonderful. It had been years since Hilda had had a seaside holiday. She carefully gathered all the stuff she thought she would need, credit card, hotmail address, the postcode for this bungalow, and reached for the phone. She dialled the customer services number shown on the screen, and enquired about trips to Danemouth.
“Actually we do have one cancellation for this Tuesday,” said the helpful voice on the other end of the phone, “you are lucky, madam, someone dropped out at the last minute. It’s not a direct journey to Danemouth, more of a circular tour with Danemouth included, and it’s not a window seat I’m afraid, but if you are interested……..?”
Hilda was very interested. She booked the seat in the name of Susan Morris, paid the amount asked, on Susan’s credit card, and gave the address for the taxi pick up.
“It’ll be a very early start, Mrs Morris,” explained the caller, “the taxi will call for you at six thirty on Tuesday morning. Will you be able to manage that?”
Hilda assured her that she would be up and ready in plenty of time……..
Chapter 8
Barbara Grey had never visited Neston before. It wasn’t really on the way to anywhere, and it was out of her own patrol area. She found a parking space easily enough, near the passage which led down to the canal. The place looked very sleepy. Barbara strolled down the main street. There were two tearooms, “The Singing Canary” and “The Willow Tree Tea Room”. Both were closed. Barbara checked the opening times. The Singing Canary would be open from 2pm, but the Willow Tree was closed all day on Sundays. Would it be worth while waiting until 2pm she wondered? What would she do round here for the better part of two hours?
She walked on down the road. There was a hall, with a ripped poster on the outside wall announcing that there had been a jumble sale there on the previous day. Several black bags were piled neatly to one side of the door. Unsaleable jumble waiting to go to the dump she supposed.
There was a flurry of movement ahead of her. Barbara hurried across the street. People were streaming out of the church, evidently it was the end of the morning service. The vicar stood in the doorway of the church, shaking hands with his parishioners. Three choir boys, still in their surplices were chasing around the gravestones.
“How very English,” the thought popped unbidden into Barbara’s mind.
The vicar broke the spell by shouting at the boys to go back inside the church. Barbara gave herself a mental shake. She wasn’t here sightseeing. All the time she was scanning the faces of the women as they passed through the lych-gate, although she doubted if Hilda Hopkins would have the gall to enter a church considering what she had been up to.
There was no sign of her. Barbara returned to her car and drove around the village. It didn’t take long, it was a very small village. There appeared to be no hotel here, but the local Inn advertised rooms to let on a board next to the door of the Public Bar. Barbara went in and flashed her warrant card at the landlord. This wasn’t really her jurisdiction, but it would be such a feather in her cap if she tracked the miserable woman down.
There was no-one staying there though, no-one at all, and they hadn’t had any guests for some time. The landlord explained that although they had the board up advertising rooms, they didn’t actively seek guests, he felt they were often more trouble than they were worth. There was a nice B & B in the village, Wisteria Lodge, he normally tried to steer any would be guests in that direction.
Barbara took the address of Wisteria Lodge and followed the directions the landlord had given her. The Lodge turned out to be a large chalet bungalow in a road of smaller bungalows. Barbara rang the doorbell and was shown into a neat sitting room by a middle aged man who gave his name as Mr Hartley. Barbara flashed her warrant card, and explained that she was concerned about the whereabouts of an elderly lady who had gone missing. Without actually saying so, Barbara gave the impression that the old lady suffered from memory loss, Alzheimer’s and dementia hung unspoken in the air between them.
“Can’t help you, I’m afraid m’dear,” replied Hartley, regretfully, “we’ve got a Mr and Mrs Broome staying here at the moment. They are from the States and are over here looking for their roots. Well Mrs Broome’s roots actually. Mrs Broome’s ancestors were from around here apparently. The other room is vacant just now. Would you care to see it?”
He was obviously proud of his home, and Barbara accepted the invitation to look round. The single bedroom was made up, ready for its next guest, a pretty room looking out over a garden overshadowed by high hedges. The double bedroom next door showed signs of occupancy by two people. Hilda could not have acquired a partner and an American accent in the space of two days. Asked, Mr Hartley said that the couple had been staying here since Wednesday last, so that was that.
Barbara thanked the man for his hospitality and returned to her car. Maybe Hopkins hadn’t tra
velled to Neston on the barge, or if she had, she had continued her journey elsewhere under her own steam in some way. This definitely seemed to be a dead end, unless, she thought with a grim smile, the wretched woman had slept amongst the tombstones last night. Barbara accelerated down the street, passing the bungalow, three doors away from Wisteria Lodge, where Hilda Hopkins was settled on the Morris’s sofa, a plate of biscuits to hand, watching one of her favourite films on the television.
Chapter 9
Hilda was up bright and early on Tuesday morning. She had spent the previous day making sure that she had left no obvious signs of her stay. The credit card had been returned to its place, and the history on the computer had been cleared. All the emails to Susan regarding the clothing and other purchases, plus the information about her planned coach trip had been deleted. Hilda had stripped the bed and washed the sheets before stuffing them into the tumble dryer. She slept on the bare mattress that night, and remade the bed in the morning. The sitting room had been hoovered, the curtains opened, while all the crockery she had used was washed and stacked neatly in the wall unit where she had found it. The cutlery too had been cleaned and replaced in its drawer. She even managed to plug the microwave oven back in, although she shuddered as she did so. Hilda had a genuine though irrational fear of microwaves.
Hilda had packed her old clothes along with the new. It had crossed her mind they might be useful at some point as a disguise. She looked at the shopping trolley she had bought at the jumble sale. She wouldn’t be able to take that as well, she only had one pair of hands. Regretfully Hilda took the thing to bits and stuffed all the pieces into a black bag, together with the odd remainders of food that she had purloined. With a bit of luck, the Morris’s wouldn’t realise that anything was missing from their kitchen. The black bag went out with the bins, it would be long gone before the Morris’s returned at the end of the week. As to the purchases on the credit card, hopefully if the woman received a monthly statement, it would be another three weeks before she noticed the extra spending on there.