Free More Deaths Than One by Marjorie Eccles Page B

generation, but surely a spiritual descendant.
    â€œHe really is dead?” she whispered. Tears welled up again, large and heavy. “Oh, I’m so stupid, of course he is – only, I can hardly believe it. What made him do ... what he did? After living with him for nearly two years, that’s the one thing I’d have sworn he’d never do.”
    â€œTwo years?”
    She’d caught his swift, involuntary glance outside, to where the children were chasing round, shouting and laughing now, their cheeks rosy with the cold air. “No, the boys aren’t his. He didn’t want babies, not yet. Their father ... I had this relationship with someone, you see, we started the pottery together. I was lucky he didn’t want his share back when he left,” she finished simply.
    How much would his share have amounted to? Not enough for him, whoever he’d been, this potter, to have given a second thought to leaving it behind when he departed, it seemed. Barely enough, one would have thought, to support the girl and her two children. Mayo said gently, “Can we begin by establishing the last time you saw Mr. Fleming?”
    â€œIt was about half past seven on Monday when he left. He had to get over to Lavenstock to meet someone.”
    â€œDid he say who?” She shook her head. “Or what it was about?”
    â€œNo, I just supposed he was covering some sort of story, though he did seem excited about it. He said he’d be back as soon as he could make it.”
    â€œDid he often spend days away like that?”
    â€œIf he had a story to follow up. But he never spent more time away than he had to. He used to say he could relax here with me and recharge his batteries.”
    She went to pull aside the window curtain, ostensibly to check on the children in the garden, but really to make use of a wad of tissue pulled from her pocket. Presently she came back, nervously plucking off the leaf of a tradescantia that tumbled from a shelf above the table while contemplating her feet, shod in flat black lace-ups with thick crepe soles, worn with black woollen stockings. There was a smear of flour on her cheek. “You know he was married?” she asked suddenly in a choked voice, looking up and flushing. “Yes, well ... he hasn’t seen her for years, but she wouldn’t divorce him, you know, she’s a strong Catholic. Not that marriage would have made any difference to us, we didn’t need to make any public vows to prove our commitment.”
    Her naivety was so simple it was nearly unbelievable. Her gaze travelled from one to the other, her eyes beseeching them to believe her, as if this might allow her to believe Fleming’s lies too. She must have known there was nothing to stop Fleming divorcing Georgina if they’d been separated for years, as he said, regardless of either Georgina’s wishes or her religious beliefs, real or invented. Fleming had spun Bryony a tale, just as he’d spun Georgina one. And neither woman had believed him, though both had pretended to, for their own reasons – so what had it been about Rupert Fleming, apart from his arrogant, haughty good looks, that had made his women go along with the doubtful game he played and sorrow for him when he was dead?
    â€œI once saw her, you know. I got someone to look after the children for the afternoon and I got a bus into Lavenstock. I went to that place where she works, where she has her business, and I saw her.” She didn’t seem to realize she had just sadly, pathetically confirmed what he suspected. She hugged her arms across her chest as if the cold of the room had at last got to her and said without a trace of envy, yet looking very young and vulnerable, “She’s very – good-looking, isn’t she? And very power –” She hesitated, fumbling for the right word but not finding it. “Well, anyway, that’s just what he couldn’t stand