The Stratford Murder by Mike Hollow (best thriller novels of all time .TXT) 📗

into his voice. ‘If you can’t judge a book by its cover it means appearances can be deceptive. A leopard’s appearance is never deceptive, precisely because it cannot change its spots.’

Cradock looked at Jago as if his boss had temporarily lost the balance of his mind.

‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Jago with a sigh. ‘I’m all right.’

A month or so earlier the banks had shortened their Saturday opening hours, blaming the change on the war, but on weekdays they were still open until two o’clock in the afternoon. It was five minutes to two when Jago and Cradock entered the National Provincial and were shown to the manager.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you again, Mr Pemberton,’ said Jago. ‘I know your day is far from over when the doors close, but I need to see Miss Hurst again for a moment.’

‘But you spoke to her only yesterday,’ the manager replied. Neither his voice nor his expression reflected the lightness that Jago had noticed the previous day. ‘Are you sure she’s not in any trouble? This is a bank, Mr Jago, and we value our reputation for probity in all matters very highly.’

‘There’s no question of impropriety on Miss Hurst’s part. It’s just that she’s a witness in a case we’re investigating, and I need a little help from her.’

‘Very well. There’s a room upstairs that the staff use for their lunch break. It should be empty by now – you can talk to her there. But please don’t take too much of her time. There’s a lot of correspondence for her to type before she goes home, and the sun will be down before six. I don’t like to have to keep the girls here after dark, not since the air raids started.’

The manager sent for Carol Hurst, and she took Jago and Cradock to the staff room upstairs. It was deserted. Closing the door behind them, she invited them to take a seat at a small round table while she made a pot of tea for them. Cradock put the suitcase down on the floor next to his chair and silently hoped for biscuits.

‘Here you are,’ she said, handing a cup of tea to each of them when it was brewed. ‘Here’s sugar too if you need it. I’m sorry I haven’t got anything to offer you to eat.’

‘That’s quite all right,’ Jago replied. ‘A cup of tea is more than sufficient.’

Cradock smiled at the young woman sympathetically, hoping she might still remember a forgotten staff biscuit barrel, but she didn’t seem to receive the message he thought he was sending.

‘Now, Miss Hurst,’ said Jago. ‘I won’t keep you long. I’d just like to ask you a little about Joan Lewis and Richard, her husband. My question might seem a little intrusive, so please forgive me, but it’s been suggested to me that their marriage wasn’t necessarily in what you might call a healthy state. Is that correct?’

‘Who said that?’ said Carol.

Jago did not reply.

‘Oh, I see,’ she continued. ‘You’re not going to tell me. That’s your prerogative, I suppose. But if you want to know what I think, well, I hesitate to say, Inspector.’

‘You can be frank with me.’

‘All right, if you say so. I think Joan hoped for all the good things in marriage, but what you hope for in life and what you get can be very different, can’t they? I suspect maybe she saw what she wanted to see in Richard and grabbed her chance in case it slipped away, but then she found out they weren’t the perfect match after all. He wasn’t quite the man she’d hoped for, and she couldn’t be the woman he needed.’

‘Do you have any evidence for that?’

‘No, of course not. I mean, what can you tell about someone’s marriage from the outside? You never really know what goes on behind closed doors, do you? I was very fond of Joan, and I know she chose to marry Richard – no one forced her into it. I think she married him because she loved him, but maybe it went just a little bit sour later on.’

‘Why was that?’

‘What can I say? It wasn’t easy for her, you know. When they got married they had to go and live with Audrey, his mother. Well, everyone knows that’s going to put the kybosh on it – I mean, a new wife living under her mother-in-law’s roof? Two women in the same house like that, it’s never going to work. I think it was just one of those cases where they didn’t hit it off. Joan was a lovely girl, but I got the impression she felt she’d never quite matched up to the standards Audrey expected for her son. You’ve probably heard that sort of thing a thousand times.’

‘I’ve been told Joan was lonely, that she didn’t have many close friends.’

‘She had me – we were close. She was like a sister to me – more than a sister, in fact. Ever since we first got to know each other doing all that prancing about exercise, like I said before.’

‘Did you remain close?’

‘You mean after she got married?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that always changes things a bit, doesn’t it? I mean, she had a husband to look after. We were still more than just friends, though, I’m sure of that, even if we didn’t see as much of each other as we used to. I think I was the only person she could really confide in. That’s how I knew it wasn’t all roses with her mother-in-law. Mind you, I don’t say it was all Audrey’s fault. She’s had a basinful of trouble of her own to cope with. Her husband died, you know.’

‘Yes, she told me. She said he was an investor.’

Carol gave a sudden laugh that almost caused her to spurt tea over her lap. She choked and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief.

‘Oh, do forgive me, Inspector, I shouldn’t be laughing at a time like this. It’s just that the way