Johnny Swanson - Eleanor Updale [42]
Hutch and Johnny listened in as the reporter rang his news desk. He was twitching with excitement, holding the receiver between his shoulder and ear as he tried to light a cigarette while jabbering to his editor. Clearly some of the policemen had broken their own rule about not talking to the press. ‘It’s better than I thought,’ the reporter panted down the phone. ‘There may be two victims. They’ve got a suspect who had a motive for killing both the Langfords. They’re ransacking the house, and they’re going to search the garden in the morning. The suspect’s denying everything, and refusing to say where the second body’s hidden, but they’re going to question her all night … What? Yes, that’s right: her. The suspect is a woman.’
At that moment Johnny realized why the policeman had been asking him so many questions. His mother was in very deep trouble indeed.
Chapter 21
THE SUSPECT
It was clear the reporter had no idea that Johnny was the suspect’s son. Before Hutch could steer Johnny out of earshot, the man rattled out his story for the next morning’s paper to the person on the other end of the phone.
‘OK. If you’re ready, I’ll start dictating,’ he said. ‘It’ll need a good headline: BARMAID QUIZZED IN BLOODY DOUBLE MURDER, or something like that.’ He took a drag of his cigarette and began, occasionally consulting scribbled notes, but obviously composing his article as he went along:
‘Mystery surrounds the discovery, in Stambleton yesterday, of the corpse of retired doctor Giles Langford. At first light today police begin the grim search of the Langfords’ garden for the remains of his wife, Marie, feared to be the second victim of a savage double killing.’
He paused to let the typist catch up.
‘Dr Langford was found in a pool of blood yesterday afternoon, after a neighbour observed a broken window on the first floor of his house. She suspected a burglary, but when police arrived at the scene they found that the hole in the window was too small and too high to climb through, and that there was no sign of forced entry elsewhere. They believe that the Langfords may have let their killer into the house. Both front and back doors were locked from the outside, suggesting that the murderer might be someone, such as a domestic servant, who had access to a key. A barmaid, who was once the Langfords’ cleaner, was being questioned by police last night.’
Johnny lurched towards the phone box, trying to interrupt the man; to say that Winnie wasn’t really a barmaid and had never been given keys to the Langfords’. If she had, she would have gone inside weeks ago to see if everything was all right. But Hutch grabbed hold of Johnny, stopped him speaking and pulled him into the stockroom as the reporter flipped to another page of his notebook and continued:
‘Giles Langford (seventy-two) was well respected in the area for his work during the tuberculosis outbreak in 1916. Trained at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, and Lille University in France, he …’
Hutch closed the door. ‘You mustn’t talk to that man,’ he whispered. ‘Remember what the officer said.’ He handed Johnny the bag of food. ‘Now, you get home to your auntie. I’ll stay here to close up.’
‘Hutch …’ said Johnny, thinking that he really should say that there was no aunt, and that he would be going back to an empty house. ‘Hutch …’
But Hutch shooed him out of the back door. ‘Go now, Johnny, before he gets off the phone. You don’t want him asking you any questions.’
So Johnny ran home, and sat at the table with food enough for two but absolutely no appetite at all. There was nothing unusual about him being alone – these days Winnie was often out working in the evenings – but Johnny felt her absence more than ever. His mind raced over what he had heard. He tried desperately to persuade himself that the evidence didn’t point towards his mother, but he could see that it might. And yet