‘I need to talk to you in private,’ Miss Gribble said to Sylvia in a low voice. She felt she had to let the girl know she wanted nothing more than to let Christabel see her and the child and then they would go. But she couldn’t say that in front of Christabel. ‘Where can we go?’
‘Nowhere in this cottage – it’s too small,’ Sylvia replied.
‘Could Christabel and Petal go and sit in the car, then?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got things I must tell you, and I can’t with Petal listening. Please? Just for a few moments.’
Sylvia looked a little apprehensive but nodded her agreement. ‘Okay. Petal adores cars, and it can’t do any harm as long as she sticks to asking about school and stuff.’
She went over to Petal and stroked her face. ‘Look, sweetie. Would you just go and sit in the car with this lady for a few minutes so I can talk to her friend?’
Petal nodded and readily took Christabel’s hand. She was giggling as Christabel held the umbrella over them both to run to the car.
Sylvia turned to Miss Gribble the moment they’d gone. ‘Now what do you want?’ she asked. ‘If you think I’m coming back, you’d better think again. I wouldn’t cross that threshold if my life depended on it.’
Miss Gribble’s hackles rose immediately, just as they always had when Sylvia showed a lack of respect for either her or her mother. She’d been a wilful child who had always gone against any form of authority. As she got older, she’d become scornful because her mother was weak, and she’d done her best to drive a wedge between herself and Christabel. Miss Gribble tried to control her rising anger, because she knew Sylvia would never agree to her terms if she thought she was being put under pressure.
‘It’s your mother’s nerves,’ she said. ‘You and the child are all she thinks about – she’s always asking about her, crying for hours sometimes. I’m afraid she might have a complete breakdown unless you allow her some contact with you both. I’m not saying you have to come to the house. You could stay nearby, and she could come to you.’
‘Even if I had the money to go all that way, why would I even consider seeing a woman who allowed you to mistreat and manipulate me?’ Sylvia snarled. ‘I don’t care if she has a breakdown, a mother’s job is to protect her child, and she didn’t, because she preferred to go along with what you, a bloody monster, told her to do. You were inhuman, and you are never going to inflict the kind of things you did on me on Petal. I hated you my whole childhood, and now I’m old enough to rationalize it all I hate you even more.’
Lashing out was what Maud Gribble always did when anyone upset her. This was why she kept her distance from people. Mostly, the lashing out was just shouting abuse or throwing something. Any form of physical violence she generally managed to control. But Sylvia’s words cut right into her, and she couldn’t hold back.
She sprang at Sylvia, catching hold of her two upper arms and shaking her like a rag doll. She must have done that hundreds of times while Sylvia was growing up. But, this time, she couldn’t stop.
Sylvia’s head began lolling to one side, and Miss Gribble let go of her arms, took her head in her two hands and slammed it backwards.
It was the horrible crunching sound that alerted her to the fact that she’d banged Sylvia against the edge of the stone mantelpiece and not the wall. She let go of the girl and she dropped to the hearth like a sack of potatoes, leaving a trail of blood across the fireplace.
Panic took over. She glanced out and saw Christabel and Petal happily chatting in the back of the car. They hadn’t come to try and take Petal away, but she knew it would make Christabel very happy if they could drive away with the child.
‘So that’s what I did!’ Miss Gribble said, finishing up her story. ‘I collected up a few bits of Petal’s from upstairs and picked up a diary of Sylvia’s, because I thought it might have some information about her in it. Then I went to the car. I said I was driving Petal down to the village party and that her mum would follow on when she’d done her hair.’
DI Pople was astounded at the way Miss Gribble had graphically described the scene, both seeing and then killing Sylvia. It was almost like hearing a play on the wireless. There was no doubt that what she said was the absolute truth. He thought she was utterly mad, in as much as she had no real conception of the evil of what she’d done.
He was so astounded he felt faint.
‘Tell me, then,’ he said, pulling himself together so as to continue. ‘Did Christabel have any idea of what you’d done?’
‘None. She did ask why she couldn’t say goodbye to Sylvia, but that was all. Petal got a bit anxious when I didn’t stop at the village hall, but I said it was too early for the party and we’d have a little ride in the car. Later I told her that her mother was following us down to our place the next day on the train.’
DI Pople gulped. ‘And what did she say to that?’
‘She starting crying and making a fuss because she hadn’t got her fancy-dress costume and she was missing the party. I had to smack her.’
‘You casually killed the mother and took the child away?’ DI Pople was incredulous.
‘I didn’t mean to kill Sylvia, and I certainly didn’t want to take the child. But I had to, didn’t I? I couldn’t leave her there.’
‘So when did you tell Christabel that you’d killed her daughter?’
‘I didn’t. I told her that Sylvia had admitted she was struggling to keep body and soul together and couldn’t get a decent job because of Petal. I said I’d suggested we took Petal home with us, then, once she’d found a good job, Sylvia could come down to see us.’
DI Pople shook his head, amazed that Christabel would believe this. But, clearly, she’d been conditioned since she was a small child into doing whatever Miss Gribble said.
‘And, once you got home, how did you explain away the need to keep Petal hidden from view?’
Miss Gribble gave him a pitying look. ‘Because of her colour, of course.’
‘How long did you think you could keep her hidden? What about school? If she became ill? Surely Christabel isn’t so crazy she wouldn’t consider these things?’
‘I told you, she’s always relied on me to make decisions.’
‘And what decisions had you made about the child’s future?’
‘I’d already realized I would have to kill her.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘I hate September,’ Molly sighed as she looked out the ballroom window at the rain lashing down in the street. ‘It’s a sort of preview to all the grim stuff winter’s got in store for us.’
Evelyn, who was sitting at one of the tables behind Molly planning the seating arrangements for a wedding party at the weekend, laughed.
‘Oh, you doomy thing!’ she said. ‘We often get lovely weather right through October. You’re only feeling that way because the weather has been so good and, now Petal is back at school, you feel a bit lost.’
Molly looked round at her employer. ‘Maybe. I do feel a bit lost without her, but the way I feel isn’t to do with Petal.’
Caring for Petal had been the best thing that had ever happened to Molly. From the moment she got her up in the mornings right through till she kissed her goodnight and tucked her in, she felt happy. She couldn’t really put a finger on what it was that made her feel this way. Perhaps it was just a need in her to care for someone, or a substitute for a family of her own. But she loved taking Petal to the beach, reading to her, playing dolls with her, everything about being with her. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled, of course, that she’s settled down so well and the nightmares have stopped, but –’ she stopped suddenly, too embarrassed to go on.