two o’clock Tess let herself out the front door of the flat for the last time. She would not be coming back. Tomorrow she would go somewhere new. Though she wasn’t going to let her husband know that. He’d given her a seven-day train ticket, well, tomorrow she intended to get a train. She wasn’t going to bother with a visit to St Thomas’s. Now that she knew where his parents lived.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Martha was wearing a proper bib apron with a wide pocket in the skirt. She was in charge of the tea-making. She popped her head out the back door and gazed at the policeman talking to Jim.
‘Do you take sugar in your tea?’ she asked.
‘One, thank you, Mrs King,’ the tall man replied. He looked too young to be a policeman. His face didn’t look like it had grown any hair. Why Jim had to talk to him out in the garden she didn’t know. He’d said so the chap could smoke, but she hadn’t seen any evidence of that when looking out of the window. They were just standing there in quite blowy weather and Jim seemed to be doing a lot of the talking.
She’d called the 101 number this time, not wanting to be reprimanded for calling 999 again. When a constable turned up, surprisingly quick, she’d given him a full account of her stolen scarf and where she’d lost it and who had taken it. She then told him she’d seen it with her own eyes that morning on the head of the man’s new wife. She was wearing it after he had stolen it.
Jim had come home and found them talking so she’d had to go through it all again. But at least Jim was now taking it seriously. He’d said straight away that he’d like a serious word with the officer about this matter, though she hadn’t heard what this serious word was about yet as they’d then gone out to the garden and Jim had put her in charge of making the tea.
She opened the back door again and waved the two men into the kitchen with a tea towel. ‘It’ll go cold if you don’t drink it now.’
The young officer took off his cap and accepted the mug she offered. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ He sipped it and found it just right. ‘Nice cup of tea.’
‘If you heat the teapot first you can’t go wrong.’ She settled down on a small footstool, leaving the two chairs at the kitchen table to the men. ‘Sorry I can’t offer you a biscuit. I can’t find any. I think Jim must eat them all.’
She saw the policeman eyeing a wall cupboard. ‘What about in that one?’ He smiled and pointed.
Martha saw that he was looking at Jim’s label on the cupboard door saying what was inside it. The word ‘BISCUITS’ was written as large as life and Martha felt foolish for not seeing it. Jim gave the man a bit of a look and saved her further embarrassment.
‘They’re all gone. Martha’s right.’
The young officer stared away awkwardly, before speaking again. ‘You have a lovely home, Mrs King.’
‘It’s been rewired and had a new boiler put in two years ago and, of course, the roof is sound. Ted did it not long ago.’ She patted the wall beside her. ‘It’s been a good solid house, so it has.’ She took a hanky from her apron pocket and gave her nose a quick blow. ‘So, about this matter. You’re going to take it seriously then?’
He shuffled a bit in his seat. ‘You could say that. You’re absolutely sure though that your scarf isn’t somewhere inside your home?’
She shook her head. ‘I lost it in the cemetery after he was following me, like I said. I saw him at the hospital and it shook him up to hear me say I knew his real name. That’s why he followed me! Not to steal my scarf but to silence me! If not for Jim I’d be dead!’
‘Maybe someone picked it up. Someone else, I mean.’
He sipped some more of his tea and she glared at him. She may as well have held her breath for all the notice he was taking. ‘I may well be old, Constable, but I’m not blind. His wife was wearing it this morning!’
He placed his mug on the table. ‘I’m not saying you are, Mrs King. I’m just making sure you’re certain. There are a lot of blue scarves out there.’
‘Not like