‘Benjamin Hargreaves,’ she said, without any hesitation. ‘Once a fortnight I would meet him in Ashford, just to talk. We didn’t become lovers until just before he had to go home, in 1946. I cared for him a great deal, but we were both very aware of the prejudice there was against black people mixing with white. He came from the South, near Atlanta, and he said if he were to try and take me home with him I’d have a miserable life. Of course, I had Sylvia to think of, too, she was just twenty then, and there was Gribby, who I felt I owed so much to, and I couldn’t tell her.’
‘So she didn’t know?’
‘No, she didn’t find out until long after Benjamin had gone home, when I was six months pregnant and it began to show. Even then I didn’t tell her who the father was, or that he was black. She went mad as it was. If I hadn’t been so far gone I think she would have forced me to have an abortion. Poor Sylvia was caught up in the middle of it. She listened to Gribby going on about how people would talk about me, and Sylvia argued that it didn’t matter and we could bring the baby up together.’
‘She sounds a good, kind girl,’ DI Pople said.
‘She was. I even confided in her that the baby would be black, to prepare her. That was when she suggested we could tell people it was her baby. She said she didn’t care what people thought. She was always like that – she didn’t give a damn about what she called small-mindedness. She even suggested that we got rid of Gribby, sold the house and moved to London. I was tempted, I can tell you. But I couldn’t sell the house, because Reg was missing, and it would have taken a bomb to get rid of Gribby.’
‘So you agreed that Sylvia would say the baby was hers?’
‘Yes, somewhat reluctantly, but once Gribby knew about it, she ganged up with Sylvia. It was probably the first time they were ever in agreement about anything. I wanted a quiet life, and I thought everything would come right once the baby was born. So I stayed in so no one saw me, and waited for the baby.’
‘Are you telling me you had Petal at home, with no midwife or nurse?’
‘Yes. Well, it wasn’t my first baby. I knew the ropes, and so did Gribby. It was an easy, quick birth, and she was a beautiful baby.’
‘And how did Miss Gribble take it?’
Christabel’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘She went mad because the baby was black. She called me terrible names, she ranted and raved. It was awful, and now I know what she’s capable of, I think she might have killed the baby but for Sylvia. She stood up for me. Young as she was, she was as fierce as a tiger, and she never gave Gribby a chance to be alone with Petal. That was why Sylvia ran away with her in the end. She couldn’t stand the strain, and she said to me that Petal deserved a better life than having someone constantly disapproving of her. She said I was pathetic for allowing Gribby to rule me and that no one would ever tell her what to say or do.’
‘Did you register Petal’s birth?’ DI Pople asked. He was beginning to have such admiration for Sylvia, and a great deal of sympathy for Christabel, too.
‘Sylvia did, as her mother. She slipped out and went on the bus to do it before Gribby could stop her. We had been calling her Squirrel as a pet name, but Sylvia registered her as Pamela Coleman, and of course they put “father unknown” on the birth certificate. I assume Sylvia began calling her Petal March when she ran away with her and, at the same time, she changed her own name to Cassandra March.’
DI Pople felt that he had everything he needed from Christabel now. A statement would be drawn up and signed by her and, in the meantime, he would try and get a confession from Miss Gribble that she’d murdered Reg Coleman. He hadn’t told Christabel that she had stabbed him repeatedly, as if in a frenzy. Some things were kinder not to mention.
However, one thing he felt he should do was to encourage young Molly Heywood to go and see Christabel. She needed to know about her dead friend’s mother, and Christabel could do with knowing more about both her daughters.
As for himself, he felt drained. In his entire career he had only been involved in five murders before this, and all of them had been fairly straightforward cases. This one had been hell, not because it was difficult but because one psychopathic woman had manipulated and destroyed an entire family.
If Gribble hadn’t killed Reg, he might very well have pushed her out, and he, Christabel and Sylvia could have had a happy life together. Instead, Christabel became a virtual prisoner and Sylvia was forced to take responsibility for her half-sister and hide away, hoping they’d never be found. Her life, too, had been blighted, and then wiped out.
As for poor Petal, no court was ever going to give her back to her natural mother, but what would they decide her fate was to be? She was happy now with Molly Heywood and the Bridgenorths, but that was a temporary arrangement. Was she going to spend the rest of her childhood being moved around, haunted by the memory of the cruel woman who snatched her away and locked her up and never fully understanding why the woman she called her mother had died?
Molly was surprised when DI Pople called on her at the George. On the local news the previous evening it had been reported that the body of a man believed to be Private Reginald Coleman had been found in the garden of Mulberry House. She had been shocked to the core and wondered how someone as wicked as Miss Gribble had managed to get away with her crimes.
When she took Petal to school she was aware of people looking at her and that groups of women had their heads together talking but would break off as she came near. No one dared to ask her any questions, which was just as well, because she knew no more than they did. But it was an uncomfortable experience, and she fervently hoped no one would try to talk to Petal about it.
Because this latest development had nothing to do with her, she hadn’t expected a visit from the police and had continued her chambermaid duties as usual. Then she had been called down to see DI Pople.
They sat in the small office behind reception and he told her about Reg Coleman’s body being found and how he’d gone to see Christabel to break the news to her.
‘It was then that she told me that Petal is her daughter, not Sylvia’s,’ he said. And, seeing Molly’s complete shock, he added, ‘And your face reflects how I responded to the news.’
‘Good God!’ Molly exclaimed. ‘That is the absolute last thing I expected to hear.’
He filled her in with a little more detail and then asked if she would consider going to see Christabel at Hellingly. ‘You don’t have to, but I think it will be beneficial to both of you. She really needs to know about both Sylvia and Petal. You might say she doesn’t deserve to, and I wouldn’t blame you after she walloped you with that axe. But I’ve noticed that you’re a compassionate person, and I think talking to her will help you understand how all this came about. In my opinion, she’s been as much a victim of Miss Gribble as Reg Coleman, Sylvia, Petal and you were. She isn’t barmy, she’s been fed drugs which kept her partially sedated, and now she’s free of them she’s articulate, sensible and horrified at her part in all this.’
Molly considered this for a moment or two. ‘I hope she doesn’t think that by getting me on side she can have Petal back?’
‘She doesn’t even know I’m asking you to see her and, besides, no judge on earth would allow Petal to go back to her, even if she’d become a saint. She’s just a woman who has been badly used, and I know you will understand how that can happen.’
It crossed Molly’s mind that George might have told DI Pople a bit about her home life.
‘Okay, I’ll go on my next day off. It can’t hurt me, can it? At least I can make her see what a good mum Cassie was to Petal and, now I know her background, I think Cassie is the one who should be sainted!’ She laughed then, and told DI Pople how much Cassie would’ve hated anyone saying such a thing.