A Woman Unknown by Frances Brody

Author:Frances Brody [Brody, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Cozy Mystery, Historical
ISBN: 0749954922
Google: wJDxuG2wpQ4C
Amazon: B008FQ1O5Q
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-09-05T14:00:00+00:00

Blame the reaction to the horror of discovering Len Diamond’s body, or too much brandy. When I arrived home, I slid onto the chaise longue in the drawing room, and fell asleep.

My dream must have been prompted by hearing about Mrs Hartigan’s death, and imagining Deirdre’s feelings. I dreamed my own mother died, and I was given the news. In the dream, it was unclear exactly who had died. I tried to find out whether it was the woman I thought of as my real mother: Ginny, who adopted me and brought me up, or my birth mother, she whom I could only ever think of as Mrs Whitaker, who lived in Wakefield, in White Swan Yard, and who gave me up when I was only weeks old. There was a sense of panic when I woke. I had asked the question, but had no answer. Who is it? Who is dead?

My head ached. I was desperate for a glass of water and went into the kitchen, thinking about Deirdre Fitzpatrick, wondering where she had fled.

Mrs Sugden heard me, and appeared. ‘I kept quiet. I was going to do the stairs and landing but when I saw you sleeping, I didn’t want to disturb you. I’ve made a stew. You better have some by the look of you.’

As we sat at the kitchen table, I told Mrs Sugden about Len Diamond’s death, and about Mrs Hartigan’s death, and Deirdre’s disappearance.

‘No wonder you had to escape into dreamland.’ She ladled rabbit stew into a dish. ‘Do you think this Deirdre person has run mad and done away with herself?’ Mrs Sugden was generous with her helpings. Stories of death always made her hungry. ‘With that nursing home being near Roundhay Park, the poor lass could have been drawn to the lake.’

The stew tasted good. ‘Something tells me that Deirdre Fitzpatrick is made of stouter stuff than to drown herself.’

Mrs Sugden knew about Sykes’s soft spot for Deirdre. ‘Aye, well if she can turn Mr Sykes’s head, and he with no fondness for left footers, she must have a way with her.’

The remark about left footing reminded me of Deirdre’s Catholicism. ‘I wonder if she’s gone somewhere to say prayers for the dead. Whatever else she may or may not have done, she was devoted to her mother.’

‘Search me. And it’s no use asking Miss Merton. She doesn’t mix with Irish Catholics. They’re a different breed altogether, according to her.’

Elizabeth Merton is our neighbour, a single lady, and Catholic convert, who keeps house for her professor brother.

Sookie chose that moment to leap from her spot on the rocking chair and stroll up to us, waving her tail in the air. Perhaps she recognised Miss Merton’s name as the person who came to look in on her on the rare occasions that both Mrs Sugden and I were away from home at the same time. Or perhaps she wanted to lick the dishes.

‘Happen there’s some man in the picture,’ Mrs Sugden suggested. ‘If Mrs Fitzpatrick is not crying on her husband’s shoulder, then maybe there’s someone else.

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