like as an old woman. Or rather, I can, but I prefer not to.â
âNot a pretty sight. Not a pretty listen either. There certainly is an obsession or two at work there, not just about lesbians, I suspect, but pretty much anyone who steps outside the general run. I got no sense at all that sheâd talked to the local bigwigs about this, but there was a mention of my granddadâMayâs father. She didnât say sheâd told him of her suspicions, quite the reverse: I think she implied she had got her suspicions from him. But that could be a cover-up. She may well have reported to him.â
Jean stretched her mouth in distaste.
âAll this seems quite extraordinary, so many years on.â
âYes, doesnât it?â
âAnd I think I do understand why you wanted to talk to me.â
âI hope so. I feel itâs an intrusion, but I hope itâs a justified one. And there was something else.â
âSomething else?â Was there a new tension in that plump, comfortable body sitting opposite her?
âIâd got a letter several days before the funeral.â Eve rummaged in her pocket. She had brought only the first page of the letter, not wanting to show her hand too clearly, and particularly anxious not to bring into the open the mentions of what was done to âJohn.â She handed the page over, and Jean Mannering spent some time studying it. Finally she put it down on the table.
âWas my name at the end of this?â
âThe name was âJean,â yes.â
âNo surname or address?â
âNo, not anywhere.â
âBut itâs not my handwriting, you know.â
âItâs very like it.â
âYes. All girls of my generation were taught to write in this standard upright legible way. I suppose they were all destined for useful but not particularly important jobs where legibility was a definite plus: secretaries, schoolteachers. I remember your motherâs hand was pretty similar. Do you have the letter I wrote to you yesterday?â
âI think so.â Eve rummaged again in her handbag. âYes, here it is. I havenât compared them, because it only came this morning. But it looks very similar.â
âAt first glance it does. But look at the t s on this letter: I never have the loop at the bottom: my t s are always straight down and cut off from the next letter. And this letter always does a Greek e in certain positionsâafter an s, for example.â She got up and went to the desk. âLook, this is a letter Iâm in the middle of writing to the bishop. Thatâs the writing of the letter you got this morning. Compare it to the first letter. That was not written by me.â
âBut it is from someone who knows about you, isnât it?â
âApparently so, yes. I donât like the thought of that. I presume the first word on the next page is âdramatics,â isnât it?â
âIt is. Sheâthis person, I should sayâknows parts you have played.â
âDoes she or he? A Huddersfield person? It could be a âhe,â you know. Itâs perfectly easy to imitate a standard womanâs style of handwritingâmuch easier than a manâs, which aims at originality, forcefulness, things like that.â
âYes, I suppose it is. Have you any idea who might have done this?â
âNone at all. Aunt Ada occurs to mind.â
âYes, Iâve thought of her. But itâs a clever letter. It gets the tone right. I donât think Aunt Ada is a clever person. She would let her prejudices, her distaste, filter into the letter, and it doesnât.â
Jean thought.
âThe letter writerâs not always right, you know. For instance, May and I had not been in regular correspondence for years.â
âBut she wanted to convince meâshe surely wrote knowing May was dead and it would be I who read itâthat it was part of a