The Word Is Murder(30)

‘Then perhaps you haven’t understood her correctly.’

‘She was fairly specific. Do you know where he was last Monday?’

‘Yes, of course I know where he was. He was upstairs. He’s upstairs now. He doesn’t often leave his room and certainly never on his own.’

The door opened behind us and a young woman came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting jersey. I knew at once that this was Mary O’Brien. She somehow had the look and the manner of a nanny, with a sort of seriousness about her, thick arms crossed over her chest, a plump face, very straight black hair. She was about thirty-five, so would have been in her mid-twenties when the accident occurred.

‘I’m sorry, Judith,’ she said. Her Irish accent was immediately distinctive. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’

‘That’s all right, Mary. This is Mr Hawthorne and …’

‘Anthony,’ I said.

‘They’re asking questions about Diana Cowper.’

‘Oh.’ Mary’s face fell. Her eyes flicked back to the door. Perhaps she was wondering if she could leave. Perhaps she was wishing that she had never come in.

‘They may want to talk to you about what happened in Deal.’

Mary nodded. ‘I’ll tell you whatever it is you want to know,’ she said. ‘Although, heaven knows, I’ve gone over it a thousand times.’ She sat down at the table. She had lived here so long that she was on equal terms with Judith. She treated the house as her own. At the same time, though, Judith got up and moved to the other side of the room and I wondered if, after all, there might be some tension between them.

‘So how can I help you?’ Mary asked.

‘You can tell us what happened that day,’ Hawthorne said. ‘I know you’ve said it all before but it may help us, hearing it from you.’

‘All right.’ Mary composed herself. Judith watched from the side. ‘We’d come off the beach. I’d promised the boys they could have an ice-cream before we went back to the hotel. We were staying at the Royal Hotel, which was just a short distance away. The boys had been told never to cross the road without holding my hand and normally they never would have – but they were overtired. They weren’t thinking straight. They saw the ice-cream shop and they got excited and before I knew what had happened, they were running across.

‘I ran after them, trying to grab them. At the same time, I saw the car coming – a blue Volkswagen. I was sure it would stop. But it didn’t. Before I could reach them, the car had hit them. I saw Timothy knocked to one side and Jeremy flying through the air. I was convinced he would be the worst hurt of the two.’ She glanced at her employer. ‘I hate going over this in front of you, Judith.’

‘It’s all right, Mary. They need to know.’

‘The car came screeching to a halt. It would have been about twenty yards further up the road. I was sure the driver was going to get out but she didn’t. Instead, she suddenly accelerated and drove off down the road.’

‘Did you actually see Mrs Cowper behind the wheel?’

‘No. I only saw the back of her head and even that didn’t really register with me. I was in shock.’

‘Go on.’

‘There’s not very much more to tell. A whole crowd of people seemed to appear from nowhere very quickly. There was a chemist’s next to the ice-cream shop and the owner was the first to arrive. His name was Traverton. He was very helpful.’

‘How about the people from the ice-cream shop?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘It was closed,’ Judith said and there was a bitter quality to her voice.

‘It somehow makes it even worse that the boys hadn’t noticed,’ Mary agreed. ‘The shop was closed anyway. But there was just a small sign in the door and they hadn’t seen it.’

‘What happened next?’

‘The police arrived. An ambulance came. They took us to hospital … all three of us. All I wanted to do was ask about the boys but I wasn’t their mother and they wouldn’t tell me. I got them to call Judith … and Alan. It was only when they finally got there that I found out.’

‘How long did it take the police to find Diana Cowper?’

‘Her son drove her to the police station in Deal two hours later. She would never have got away with it. One of the witnesses had seen her registration number so they knew who the car belonged to.’

‘Did you see her again?’

Mary nodded. ‘I saw her at the trial. I didn’t speak to her.’

‘And you haven’t seen her since?’

‘No. Why would I want to? She’s the last person in the world I’d want to see.’

‘Someone murdered her last week.’

‘Are you implying I did it? That’s ridiculous. I didn’t even know where she lived.’

I didn’t believe her. It’s easy enough to find anyone’s address these days. And she was certainly hiding something. Looking at her more closely, I realised Mary O’Brien was more attractive than I had first thought. There was a freshness about her, a lack of sophistication, that made her very appealing. At the same time, though, I didn’t trust her. I got the feeling that she wasn’t telling us the whole truth.

‘Mr Hawthorne thinks that Jeremy might have visited that woman on his own,’ Judith Godwin said.