Randall tried to flush her out a little. ‘It’s a lovely place, Mrs Godfrey.’
She turned around and gave Alex Randall a film star smile. ‘Petula. Please.’ She was quite an actress, swiftly replacing the apathy for a perfectly charming hostess.
Petula pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and led them into a conservatory which was jungle-hot and made full use of the view which spread out before them in a panoramic picture. The room was long and narrow and contained an assortment of cane furniture and a large, cream, leather sofa against the back wall. There were various brightly coloured canvases of modern art but the real star of the show was the view outside, of classical Spain.
Petula reclined across the sofa, legs stretched out in front of her, and waved a hand vaguely. ‘Take a seat,’ she said. ‘Anywhere.’
Both men sat down opposite her, reluctantly facing the modern art rather than the picture through the glass wall.
‘Now then,’ she said. ‘What’s all this about?’
‘I don’t know how much you know,’ Alex began, ‘but the body of a child was found in the loft in number 41, The Mount, the house you occupied until five years ago. It had apparently been there for some time. The present owners deny any knowledge of it.’ He looked at her questioningly, waiting for confirmation.
Petula had obviously decided to play this scene archly. ‘And you think I put it there, inspector? You think I buried dead babies up in the loft of my old house?’
She had made it sound silly enough to match her burst of harsh, mocking laughter.
‘A dead baby,’ Alex said unsmiling. ‘One male child, newly born. Now can you help us?’
‘Of course I bloody can’t.’ Petula’s face was pink with anger. ‘What do you think I am?’
‘Do you have any children?’
Petula looked away. ‘I haven’t, as a matter of fact. Not blessed – or looking at my friends’ nasty little blighters perhaps cursed would be a more appropriate word – with them.’
‘And Mr Godfrey?’
‘Vince and I have been together since he was seventeen years old and he walked into my dad’s hardware shop to buy some screws,’ she said with a cackle. ‘ He hasn’t got any kids either. Even Vincey boy wasn’t up to infidelity when he was seventeen.’
There was a bitterness in both her face and her voice which escaped neither of the police officers.
‘You lived in the house for…?’
‘Almost four years,’ Petula said, guarded now as though the joke had gone. Dried up.
‘We bought the house off an old biddy,’ she continued. ‘Stripped it down, did the whole place up. Made a nice job of it.’
‘Did you do any work in the loft?’
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Vince about that.’
‘Where is your husband?’
‘Playing golf,’ she said. ‘It’s all right for the blokes here. They get to play golf practically every day. It’s different for the women. Unless they join the golf boys, which isn’t quite my cup of tea. Too damned hearty and horrible clothes.’
Randall smiled for the first time at the vision of Petula in peaked cap and checked plus fours.
‘We women just get bored. And drunk,’ she added in a sad challenge.
Alex shifted in his seat, the cane making a painful squeak. ‘What time will your husband be back?’
‘In an hour or so. Don’t worry, inspector. He knows you’re coming.’
She treated them to another film star smile. ‘Well?’ Her glance drifted across to Gethin Roberts who flushed and said nothing.
‘Drink,’ she ordered, wafting long, horrendously manicured nails that reminded Alex of harpies, towards a half-empty wine bottle. ‘Well?’ she said again, suddenly defensive. ‘There isn’t a lot else to do out here. Especially when the weather’s this foul.’ There was deep resentment in her voice. ‘What do you want to drink?’ Without waiting for their answer she said, ‘I suppose you want a coffee. On duty and all that.’
‘That would be lovely.’
‘Graciela,’ she screamed.
‘ Si .’
‘Come here, you lazy cow.’ A young Spanish girl, plainly dressed in a loose-fitting black dress and flat shoes scurried into the room.
‘Make our guests some coffee and you can get me another bloody bottle of wine.’
The girl scuttled out again.
‘Next question?’ she snapped.
‘Did anyone come to the house who was pregnant?’
Petula frowned. ‘What a stupid question,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember that. Possibly. Possibly not. I really haven’t got a clue. I take it the baby wasn’t premature or something?’
‘No. It was full term.’
‘So I would have noticed a bump, wouldn’t I?’
‘I would have thought so.’
‘I mean you can’t hide a bump that bloody big, can you?’
‘Indeed not.’
‘Who lived with you in the house?’
Petula rolled her eyes. ‘It gets worse, don’t it? Just me and my old man, sunshine.’
‘So just the two of you,’ Alex asked carefully.
‘We had a bit of help in the house. Can’t expect me to do the scrubbing and such like.’
‘What sort of help?’
‘I don’t know. Enough to make sure the everyday things were completed.’
‘What sort of help?’ Alex repeated.
‘A couple of maids. They never stay long. Greedy little things. Want money for nothing and then bugger off when they’re bored.
‘Anyone else?’
‘A daily, a gardener. You know – the usual.’
‘The maids?’ Alex questioned delicately.
‘None of them was pregnant. I’d soon have got shot of them if they were. What use would a pregnant maid be,’ she chortled.
There was no answer to that but Alex persisted with the subject.
‘What country were they from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So how did you acquire them?’
‘Can’t remember,’ she said dismissively. ‘Probably through an agency.’
Alex held up a finger as though to make absolutely sure he had the facts so far clear in his mind. ‘So as far as you know you are unable to help me establish the identity of the dead child.’
Petula stubbed her cigarette out in her wine glass. ‘Correct,’ she said.
They were distracted by a man in his forties in light coloured trousers and a pale sweater walking into the room. He looked jaunty and bent down to kiss Petula. ‘Hello, ducky,’ he said before extending a hand first to Alex and then to Roberts. ‘I assume you’re the two policemen from Shrewsbury.’
Alex nodded.
‘Rum business. Well, I don’t know how I can help you.’ He waved a decanter around. ‘Drink anyone?’
His wife sighed. ‘Not whisky, Vince.’ She glanced around her. ‘Where’s that bloody girl?’
She gave a loud annoyed sigh and addressed her husband. ‘Nice game, dear?’ There was something a little more than weary in her tone which told them all, including Vince, that she didn’t give a monkey’s rear end whether he had had a nice game or had knocked the ball to the bottom of a pond and not bothered to retrieve it. There was both resentment and a certain reproof in her voice.
Vince Godfrey poured himself a whisky, and flung himself down in one of the cane chairs. It too creaked a little in protestation as though it was a living entity and resented his weight.
‘Now then,’ he said cheerily, leaning back and crossing his legs at the ankles. ‘Fire away.’
‘I understand from your wife that you did some extensive refurbishment of the house in Shrewsbury?’
‘That’s right. Made a lovely job of the place though I understand from various mutual friends that they’ve done it up all over again. Hah.’