The Good Wife by Jane A. Adams

Author:Jane A. Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448303809
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2019-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

In the early afternoon, Henry, Mickey and Sergeant Emory convened at the police station to discuss what they had so far. The evidence, such as it was, was laid out on the table in front of them.

‘I have sent what fingerprints I managed to recover and photographs down to London,’ Mickey told them. ‘It will be late tomorrow probably before we get any kind of message come back. They will receive them today, but a fingerprint bureau works on comparisons in the morning and sends out its reports in the afternoon. They have their routine and we must wait on it.’

Henry nodded. He recounted what Miss Styles had told him that morning.

‘So according to her,’ Emory said slowly, ‘either Mr Phillips is responsible for the child, or we should be looking for yet another man.’ He shook his head ‘I wouldn’t reckon Mrs Mason for being a promiscuous type. Something about this does not ring true.’

‘You would not have credited the doctor’s wife with owning a gun,’ Henry said, pointing to the weapon. ‘And probably not with concealing money that her husband did not know about. Both of them took pains to cover up her past, not because she did anything illegal but because they considered it dubious. That to me speaks of someone who is deliberately trying to change their life, so if she had affairs, we must ask ourselves why. She’s been married eight years, apparently happy. Did she leave her life behind, utterly and completely eight or so years ago, or has she always continued with a kind of secondary existence that her husband did not know about?’

‘Well, all that is possible,’ Mickey said. ‘But it’s hard to know when she’d find the time. She works beside her husband, she is on this committee, and organizing that fundraising event. I suppose you could argue that this brings her into contact with a great many people, and affords her opportunity at the very least. Perhaps that flirtation on one or two occasions has grown into something else. And then there is Dr Phillips; always on hand, always pushing. And perhaps her refusal actually added to her attractions.’

‘But did he father her child?’ Emory wanted to know. ‘Or are we looking for a third person? And that’s if we believe that her relationship with Mr Benson ended when Miss Styles thinks it did. Benson led you to believe something else.’

‘He did,’ Henry agreed. ‘But do we believe him or does this simply play to the narrative of his, that women cannot resist his advances. Do we believe any of the people involved in this? So far honesty has not been in great supply. Though I’m inclined to accept what the housemaid Grace Richardson told us, and I’m also inclined to believe that Miss Styles at least believes she’s telling the truth. But she can only tell us what she observed and what inference she drew from those observations and we all know people can be mistaken.’

‘And so would you like me to go and fetch Dr Phillips here?’ Emory asked.

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