The Murdering Wives Club Read online

  “Come on in, you bitches, and let’s get this over with!” I say into the blackness.

  And lay down my pen.

  Chapter 34

  Laurie Davenport

  The evening rolls into night and Giles and I have dinner together in the kitchen. We’re discussing the whole debacle in depth and I’m trying to convince him that all of this murdering wives business is not a possible train of thought any more. It all seems more and more fanciful.

  Norah is obviously giving me a wide berth following our falling-out and I’m feeling decidedly sorry for myself. Giles is such good company when I am low and in need of a friend but of course I don’t tell him this and find the silences long.

  “The reports on the wireless are promising, sir,” he says as he sees me to my room. “I know you hate to hear about it, but I do think our chaps are giving Hitler a thrashing. Try to get a good sleep. Tomorrow is another day."

  The morning brings with it a clarity. It’s time for Laurie Davenport to work on his life. No more wishing my life would return to what it was. No more mooning about over Norah. Whatever is going to happen I need to take it by the throat and give it a good shaking into place. I’m not going to sit about this house, wallowing in self-pity. I dress myself these days and aim to confront my fears head on and sort things out. I start to gingerly make my way downstairs, in case I crash into something else and make a mess. The clock chimes seven o’clock but Norah is in the hallway because she answers the telephone when it rings.

  “Good morning, Fredrick. We were just going to have some breakfast and then make our way over to Thistleforth.”

  She listens.

  “What?” She gasps. “No!”

  A silence follows as she listens.

  “I’ll tell him, sir. He’ll take it badly. It’s the most terrible news, no matter what she’s done in the past. And she was telling us a lot but not relaying much proof of anything. I’ll look out for the delivery of her final words. All lies, you say? Suicide. Of course, I want to read what she says and I will take it all with a pinch of salt.” A pause. “I’ll not let it upset me. Yes, sir. I know I’ve a lot to learn and this was only to get Laurie back on his feet. But what you are talking about is not possible any more. Please just do as I ask and only send over the last instalment. I know what I’m doing and I think you’re being very unfair to me ...” Norah sighs and waits. “I’ll speak with Laurie. Although he has been a little hard to manage lately and I don’t think he’ll take this very well. Goodbye.” She clunks down the receiver and curses loudly. Then curses loudly again.

  “I was listening,” I say for she will see me loitering on the stairs.

  “It’s fine. He’s got some bad news from Thistleforth.”

  “What’s happened?” I ask, moving towards Norah’s outline.

  “I’m afraid Eve took her own life last night. Slit her throat with metal from the bedstead. Gruesome stuff. And the General feels that we need to come off this investigation. It’s leading nowhere.”

  Failure drips from her and I feel dejected like she does.

  “Poor Eve,” I say as Norah leads me into the dining room for breakfast. “But why did she kill herself now?”

  “She was finished telling us her tale and she knew that she was going to be questioned and holes would be poked in her story. She was worried about going back to prison. That was a bleak place, Laurie. Even for the likes of her, it was grim.”

  We’re mostly silent until the tea arrives on a squealing trolley with Giles in tow.

  “Tea,” he announces in a cheery way. “Are you two still at loggerheads?”

  “No,” we both reply together.

  “I’m terribly glad that you agree on something,” he says, leaving and closing the door.

  “This business of looking into the past and the future with fear is not healthy,” I say. “Charlotte wants us to get a divorce. If she gets a good settlement it will make her happy.” I pause. “And Freddie believes Eve was lying all this time? Was it definitely suicide?”

  “Cut her throat herself in her locked room. Looks like it. Yes.”

  “So what now?” I ask us both.

  “She’s gone and there’s no-one else talking about any Sinful Roses or murdering wives,” Norah says. “And there’s no other proof of any crimes. It seems it was all fiction. Made-up. Lies. In a way it’s a relief.”

  The gap Eve is leaving in our lives stretches out in front of me. All of that time spent worrying about her ramblings seems such a waste. Norah will want to leave now too. That makes me heave out a large sigh. I need to find a way of making Norah stay. I need to make her see that being with me will fill all those ambitions of hers. But the reality hits. I am a scarred, almost bankrupt, blind man. What future would an ambitious young woman have with me?

  I heave the chair back from table as I’ve no appetite for kippers and toast.

  “I think it’s time for me to move on,” I say and sink my head in my hands. I should take a drink or something to eat but I feel too weak and fed up to bother. “We’ve been taken as fools and have failed miserably. I was even starting to doubt our … connection.”

  “Doubt our what?” she asks.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it’s the female sex I don’t understand,” I sigh. “These criminal women are too much for a man like me. They make me see badness in everyone.”

  “You’re not dealing with normal women though, Laurie. I go over and over it. At least Eve has admitted to her crimes but she doesn’t tell us much about anything else. Dropping names like Alice Longmire and information about Lydia Babbington piqued our interest, but she never mentioned your wife.”

  “I never asked her. I slipped up badly there and now it’s too late. But Eve’s crimes were many years ago now. Charlotte is too young – she wouldn’t have known her surely?”

  “Eve possibly only knew Alice and Lydia or read about them in the newspapers.”

  “She made up the whole thing to have fun?” I ask, incredulous.

  “It seems that she did,” Norah says with a long pause. “I think that it’s time we put all of this behind us. I just know too that I can’t go back to work for the General. He’s an annoying bastard!”

  Perhaps Norah is looking for reassurance that all is still fine between us. Our argument and her abandoning me in the avenue won’t leave my mind. I vaguely hear her talking as my mind swings back and forth over all that’s happened. I hear her mention again that she won’t work for Freddie and that she might go home to Ireland. Here and now is possibly where I should ask Norah to stay in Davenport with me – but I don’t.

  Chapter 35

  Norah Walsh

  The corpse is cold. Eve Good is gone. For good. We Irish are used to rituals and traditions around death and dying. We aren’t afraid of a dead body and I shouldn’t be too upset by Eve’s passing, but a lump sticks in my throat. The marks on her neck are stitched but look fierce bad. Awful bad! Her blonde hair is caked in dried clots and although her face is clean, its paleness and peaceful expression don’t add up. Eve Good never looked so serene and yet death has given her a glow of goodness.

  Then my eye is drawn back to the gash. How can a woman be driven to do this? I’ve read Eve’s words in Fredrick’s office before the orderlies looking after Eve’s body took me down here.

  Walking back up to his office takes me a long time. Everything blurs as tears sting. What would my mother think of me now?

  “Have you been crying?” Fredrick asks when I knock on his door and step back into the office. “You remember her vileness, don’t you? Her cruelty? What are you crying for her for?”

  “It’s just that it’s all over,” I lie.

  “You don’t want to leave Davenport?” Fredrick says, lighting a cigar. “Or you’re sorry that you’ve been led a merry dance by Eve Good?”

  “Give it a rest,” I tell him, gathering my coat and hat from the coatstand near the door. “You can be such an ass, Fredrick. You think you know it
all. But you don’t. I’m going to prove it to you that I’m more than you think I am.”

  “All these women wanting to prove their power!” he says, blowing a smoke ring. “I’m far too busy for all of this. Are you going to seduce old Laurie? Or what? The whole purpose of all of this was for him to feel like a man again and for you to do his heart and prick some good. Have you done it? No!”

  “I’m going to finish what I set out to do,” I say, dragging my coat on and buttoning it. “I also know that I need time away from the lot of ye.”

  “And what about Laurie?” Fredrick asks. “Are you sure that you’re not going to tell him what you’re trying to do?”

  “I’m damn sure that he doesn’t need to know,” I say. “And you’re not going to tell him either!”

  I close the door with a determined swing on my way out. I just wish I could stop crying on the walk back to Laurie’s car. I’m sure of very little right now but I know that Eve Good’s spirit will haunt me until the end of my days.

  Chapter 36

  Laurie Davenport

  “Can you read that old newspaper clipping for me again?” I ask Norah.

  Even though she has been to identify Eve’s corpse, read the writings to me again in full, I cannot let it go. We are going through old material in the files and I’m hoping I get some enlightenment from the process, but Norah is getting impatient with me. She sighs and reads.

  “‘Eve Good Shot.Mrs Eve Good, disgraced widow of Sergeant John Good, was found shot on the road from Netterby to Belfast, yesterday evening.

  Thirty-year-old mother of seven, Mrs Dora Kilbride, noticed her lying in the ditch. “There was a lot of blood,” Mrs Kilbride recounts. “Like a stuck pig, she was. There were two big wounds, I’m certain of that.” Other onlookers were reluctant to speak and the locality is still in shock following the incidents in Whinpark. Police are tight-lipped, following the burning of the disgraced Eve Good’s place of residence in Newburn Crescent. The remains of a body found on the premises has been identified as Mr Cedric Fellows, the beloved proprietor of this very paper. Mr Fellows was also a generous and loving nephew to a Mrs Marjorie Fellows, who the depraved Mrs Eve Good is also accused of attempting to murder. With medications in her system, Mrs Marjorie Fellows almost died and says Mrs Good administered these medicines and also put them into her food. Newly promoted Sergeant Irvine said, “There has been much discussion about this woman (Mrs Good) and these tragic events. We must now look at all the facts before speaking further. This is a complex case and we feel there may be people with information who have yet to come forward. With the charred remains of Mr Cedric Fellows found in this victim’s place of residence, this is turning into a multiple homicide investigation with many facets.’”

  Norah pauses and glances up at me.

  I just nod at her to continue.

  “‘Upon being pressed about the shooting of Mrs Good, Irvine did mention that many lines of enquiry were open to them at this time, and he wished to reassure the public that Scotland Yard are also involved. He also specified the need for the public to come forward with what they know. “We call on the women of the area especially. They are home during the day and hear things that will be relevant.” Irvine also went on to add, “The truth will always rise to the surface. Anyone who thinks they will hide from justice is fooling themselves. There will be always be consequences for evil deeds – either in this world or the next.” Mrs Marjorie Fellows, now well recovered from her ordeal, has let it be known to the paper that she did indeed witness the death of her beloved nephew Cedric Fellows at the hands of their neighbour, Mrs Eve Good. Following the shooting of Mrs Good, Mrs Marjorie Fellows felt she could now speak of the horrors she witnessed from her own window. “Eve Good brutally murdered my Cedric. She trod on his face and head and dragged him inside the house. Over the time she visited me Eve Good made me take medications and I don’t know how she did not murder me too. I’m still not sure how I managed to survive or why I was spared.” Mrs Fellows declined to answer if she was glad to hear of Mrs Good’s shooting, but said, “Evil walks among us. It can even live beside us and we might never know until it is too late.” Back in her elderly brother’s residence, Mrs Fellows feels safe at last and is making a speedy recovery from the traumas she suffered.’”

  Norah pauses again. “It’s just as horrible now as the first time we read it, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I reply. “A nightmare.”

  She continues. “‘All of this has thrown light on the accident which supposedly befell Mrs Good’s own husband, Mr John Good, November last. Sergeant Good was found at the foot of the stairs, having supposedly fallen or tripped and been unable to save himself. Now it seems that the initial concerns of Sergeant Irvine are proving correct. “We always felt that there was more to John Good’s death than met the eye. Once the young mechanic, Tim Harbour, came forward as Mrs Eve Good’s lover, we felt we had motive but little evidence to convict her of that also.” Irvine refused to comment about the uncovering of a hurriedly buried and butchered corpse of Mrs Eve Good’s relative through marriage in Inishowen, Donegal. We have learned however that a Mrs Tilly Hockley, wife of the deceased, is helping police in Donegal with their enquiries. Constable Irvine also did not comment on whether the pressure from the police provoked Mrs Eve Good into further attacks and he would not be drawn on why someone might wish to murder her. He does state however, “The persons who shot Mrs Eve Good are still at large and we will hunt them down. Attempted murder is attempted murder. However, thanks to the valiant efforts of the police force and the morality of good men, this deranged and depraved woman’s truenature has been uncovered.’”

  “It seems that she was telling the truth about a lot of her crimes. It all fits with what you’ve read to me from her transcripts and the newspaper accounts,” I say, sipping the cold tea we’ve been having for the last hour. “Then why lie about the Sinful Roses? Why tell the truth about almost everything else and lie about them?”

  “I contacted the women’s prison in Armagh,” Norah says. “The prison guard who looked after Eve the most was eager to talk with us, now that Eve is gone. Remember her? She said that Eve tried every trick in the book in the prison. They never believed a word she said for she was always making up tales about the other prisoners. She also had faked many suicide attempts that didn’t make it into the files.”

  “Dear Lord.”

  “The guard spoke to me on the telephone for ages and she’s convinced that Eve cut herself the time that got her moved to the infirmary and then to Thistleforth House. She said there was no way anyone would ever try to harm her. None of the other prisoners bothered with her at all. She was in Coventry or ostracised for this and that over the years. Her behaviour was always unpredictable, but she would attempt to lie or harm herself to get out of trouble constantly.”

  “It sounds like her, doesn’t it? Rings true.”

  “Definitely. She sent out the bait about the Murdering Wives Club. Of course men in authority would be interested in such a thing. Women murdering their husbands would be a worry. Especially in wartime! When people nibbled at her nonsense she grew brazen and made up her story and then we came calling and she was set.”

  “The fire in the guesthouse?” I ask.

  Norah hums. She’s thinking.

  “Unless it was simply unrelated and we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?” I suggest.

  “Well, yes,” Norah says. “That’s a possibility. Marjorie Fellows also reported that Eve read the newspapers from front to back. Over and over again. It was a hobby for her. Lydia Babbington was in the papers for months and Eve would have also read about Alice Longmire’s husband getting robbed and stabbed. It was in the papers at the time because there was another woman with him. Scandalous.”

  “You really think Eve made it all up? Made up all the times she was with Alice and Lydia? Made up such an awful thing as a murdering wives club?”

  Norah sighs and I wish I
could see her. For she must be beautiful when she is thinking.

  “And there have been no sightings of Ravenscairn mentioned in any magazine or newspaper?” I ask. “No sign of an advertisement at all?”

  “Not one.”

  “Mind you, Eve never told us that. It was Tilly her cousin who said that, wasn’t it? Maybe the southern Irish papers have references to Ravenscairn in them?”

  “Good thinking. But I doubt we will find it even if we can lay our hands on Irish newspapers. I can ask a few relatives to keep an eye out, I suppose.”

  “I don’t know what to believe. In my gut I think she was convinced that these Sinful Roses were trying to kill her. I believed her accounts. Why would she lie about all of that?”

  “To get attention. To pass the blame,” Norah says.

  “She was in prison anyhow and, yes, she wanted to get better surroundings but it was all a bit much for her to come up with just on a whim – wasn’t it?”

  “I doubt Eve Good ever did anything on a whim. She had plenty of time to think up a tall tale in prison. She was a bad bitch, liable to say whatever would make her life better. The prison guard was convinced that she was a liar and is worried that she still isn’t dead. I had to promise her over and over that I went to check the body myself. I could understand her worry. Eve Good is a cat of nine lives when you think about it.”

  I shudder. “What is it you Irish say, Norah? God rest her soul?”

  “Yes. Make she rest in peace now,” Norah says. “And may she take her thundering lies with her.”

  “Does this mean that Charlotte wasn’t trying to kill me then?” I muse. “I’ve thought about this over and over. My whole system was in shock when I came home and Charlotte was never very loving. I shouldn’t have expected so much from her. Perhaps my disappointment evolved into accusing her of strange things.”