‘Were you aware that Molly Heywood had come to the house and Miss Gribble had imprisoned her?’

‘No, I knew nothing of that. When I first got here I had a vague, dream-like picture of picking up an axe and a girl lying on the ground in the garden, but it was like that picture of Reg coming back – it didn’t seem real. Even now I know I did hit her with the axe, and she got Petal out of the house, it still seems like a story about someone else.’

DI Pople nodded. He felt that Christabel Coleman was an honest woman. Gullible, too trusting and weak, but as much a victim as Petal and Molly.

‘Miss Gribble did kill Sylvia. She admitted she saw red at something Sylvia had said. She described how she shook her, holding her by the arms, then banged her head back against the fireplace. We are fairly certain that she intended to kill Molly Heywood, too, and she even admitted that Petal would have to go also. In view of this, we think she could also have killed your husband when he came home from France. Because of this, we would like to ask your permission to dig up your garden.’

DI Pople watched Mrs Coleman’s face carefully and saw, in turn, horror, disbelief and then anger flood it.

She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. ‘Do it. And if you find my Reg there, then I shall wish I had taken that axe to her.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

‘It so wonderful to see you, Molly,’ Dilys said breathlessly, throwing her arms around her friend on the platform of Rye Station. ‘I’m dying to know what the police are doing about those two madwomen, and whether Charley has realized that you are the best thing that ever happened to him and returned to the fold.’

Dilys had come down to see Molly just after she got out of hospital. Molly had been smarting from Charley’s rejection, anxious about Petal and still feeling poorly, so, as lovely as it was to see Dilys, the visit hadn’t been all they’d both hoped for.

‘I’m so glad you came again,’ Molly said, picking up her friend’s overnight bag with one hand and tucking the other through her friend’s arm. ‘There’s so much to catch up on, and I wasn’t really myself last time.’

‘Gosh, Rye is pretty!’ Dilys said as they crossed the road into one of the many cobbled streets lined with tiny, ancient cottages leading up to the church. ‘No one ever told me there were nice places outside of Wales. I’ll have to spread the word.’

Molly giggled. She knew it was a joke, but then, people back home in Sawbridge seemed to believe there was nowhere else in England as lovely as the West Country.

‘I’ve got the rest of today off,’ she told her friend. ‘So what would you like to do? Mooch around town? Ride a bike down to Camber Sands? Catch the bus into Hastings? I haven’t even got to pick Petal up from school – Mrs Bridgenorth said she’d do it.’

‘Surely she’s old enough to come home on her own?’ Dilys asked.

‘Yes, she’s old enough, she’s recently had her seventh birthday, but after all she went through we don’t want some mean kid saying something nasty to her and setting her right back. Every now and then she still gets a bit sad and scared, so we have to keep an eye on her.’

‘Poor kid. I think it’s amazing she’s come out of it so well. But speaking of coming out of things well, I’ve got a surprise for you.’

‘You’re coming down here to work?’

Dilys laughed. ‘No, nothing to do with me. It’s good news for you. Miss Stow has been caught handing goods over to a friend.’

Molly stopped short in shock. ‘Really? She blamed me and she was doing it herself?’

‘That’s right! She got transferred to Handbags just recently. There was a bit of a stink when they did a stock check on Gloves, but it was assumed by everyone they’d been stolen by customers – after all, they’re quite small and easy to hide. But then Mr Hardcraft caught her and her friend red-handed. Miss Stow had rung up a cheap plastic handbag but she’d put a really dear leather one in with it. It turned out she’d been doing it for some time.’

‘That bitch blamed me!’ Molly exclaimed, her cheeks turning red with anger. ‘They threw me out the night before Christmas Eve. I went through hell.’

‘I know. Everyone’s talking about it at Bourne & Hollingsworth. Nobody ever believed you’d done it, anyway, except of course Mr Hardcraft and Miss Jackson. But wait, its gets better, they checked her room and they found all sorts of stuff she’d nicked. She’d been putting it down her girdle to get past security.’

‘I bet they don’t even bother to apologize to me,’ Molly said with some bitterness. She had never been able to forget the shame and humiliation of being made to leave the company.

‘I think you’re wrong there,’ Dilys grinned. ‘You see, a lot of people saw the story in the newspaper about you rescuing Petal, so when this thing about Miss Stow broke two days ago everyone was up in arms on your behalf. They’re going to have to do something for you. After all, you could go to the newspapers.’

‘I wouldn’t do that. It was bad enough being accused in the first place, and I certainly don’t want the world and his wife to learn about it now.’

‘I so much wanted to phone you and tell you.’ Dilys’s eyes were sparkling with the news. ‘But I wanted to see your face when I told you, so I waited.’

‘So what does my face say?’

‘It did say you’d like to kill Miss Stow, but that’s gone now, you just look kind of weird.’

‘Something like this happened to my dad,’ Molly admitted. ‘He was accused of stealing the takings from the shop he worked at. He and Mum had a terrible time of it. He never got over it. I think it’s what made him such a nasty, sour apology for a man.’

‘Whatever Miss Stow put on to you, it hasn’t made you like that,’ Dilys insisted. ‘In fact, if it weren’t for that crabby cow, you’d still be at Bourne & Hollingsworth. You wouldn’t have met Charley, come to work here or found Petal.’

‘Remind me to send her a bouquet,’ Molly said sarcastically. ‘That is, instead of cheering as they cart her off to Holloway Prison.’

Dilys laughed. ‘Let’s forget about that and go to Camber Sands on bikes. I’ve got a new swimming cossie, and I look like a beauty queen in it. I think it’s warm enough to prance about with next to nothing on and get chatted up by a couple of lads.’

‘Good thinking,’ Molly said, suddenly aware that what her friend had suggested sounded like a lot of fun. She hadn’t had any of that for quite some time. ‘And tonight we’ll hit the hot spots of Rye and get silly drunk.’

On the day that Dilys had arrived to visit Molly, unbeknown to them, digging work had started at Mulberry House.

Two days later, when DI Pople drove into the grounds there, his heart sank. It was pouring with rain for the second day running and the garden was a complete quagmire. It looked as if a family of giant moles had been digging, throwing up small mountains of soil, and in between were huge puddles. His men had tried to fill in each hole they’d dug with the soil from the next one, but it hadn’t really worked. All the trees and shrubs that had been planted pre-war hadn’t been disturbed, but it was still a vast site, and there was still a great deal more ground to cover.

DI Pople got out of his car and, standing on the gravel drive, put his wellington boots on. He had been expecting complaints about the futility of the search and, before he’d even crammed a sou’wester on his head and buttoned up his raincoat, the first came.

‘No one has dug down more than a foot here for donkey’s years,’ the first remark came, from a burly constable called in from Hastings.

‘Keep at it!’ Pople yelled back, and surveyed the scene, hoping for inspiration.