H&Y20 - Deliver Us from Evil by Peter Turnbull Read Free Book Online

to the shops on Sunday evening about five p.m. We had run out of milk and so she put on her white coat and said, “I’ll be back soon” . . . or “I’ll be ten minutes”, something like that. There’s a little shop just five minutes’ walk away, you understand; it opens seven days a week and stays open late. It has to do that to compete with the supermarkets . . . bad position for a man to be in, I always thought. I don’t earn much at the biscuit factory but at least the hours are civilized.’
    ‘Yes . . . yes . . .’ Hennessey allowed impatience to edge into his voice.
    ‘So when she didn’t come back after about an hour I went out looking for her. Who wouldn’t? I went to the shop but the fella said Edith hadn’t come in that evening. I said that she must have done but he said she never did. He knows our Edith, you see. So I began to get worried because she had not taken anything with her, just about enough money in her purse to buy the pint of milk she went out for. I checked when I got back, all of her clothes were there, all of her shoes, all of her documents, even her passport and her birth certificate, her Canadian driving licence, her jewellery, it was all still there. All of it. She hadn’t left me. She left the house to go to the corner shop to buy some milk for herself and her husband so that we could have a nice cup of tea on a quiet Sunday evening before we went to bed for the night and that was it.’
    ‘I see,’ Hennessey sat slowly back in his chair. ‘Do you know of anyone who’d want to harm her?’
    ‘No, sir, no one, she only knew me in York. That’s all, just me. She had no friends . . . no enemies but . . .’ Hemmings voice faltered.
    ‘But?’ Hennessey pressed.
    ‘But what?’ Webster assisted Hennessey.
    ‘But . . . well, I didn’t know her very long, she might have been my wife but she seemed to come from nowhere . . . like she was suddenly there . . . out of the blue . . . but she did always seem to have a history. She gave the impression that she had left some sort of life behind her. But what that was I cannot say . . . I do not know. Even in marriage she was a private person.’
    ‘She must have told you something about herself?’
    ‘She told me that she had grown up in Quebec and moved to Ontario when she was very young. She told me that. She never mentioned any brothers or sisters . . . she said that her parents were both deceased. She did tell me that sort of little orphan Annie number but apart from that she really hardly told me anything.’
    ‘What was your marriage like?’
    ‘What’s any marriage like?’ Hemmings reacted defensively, Hennessey thought. ‘We were middle-aged, we settled down . . . quietly. We had an understanding, she didn’t like too many demands made on her . . . if you see what I mean.’
    ‘All right, I understand, we won’t go there . . . unless it becomes relevant.’
    ‘Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.’ Hemmings paused and took a deep breath. He clearly had powerful lungs. ‘She cooked the meals and kept the house tidy and did the laundry and I worked at the biscuit factory and earned our money. And that was our little house. Hardly glamorous, hardly the good life, but we ate, we were dry when it rained and we didn’t fight. Never had fights . . . that I appreciated. No fights. It was just nice to have someone to come home to after years of being alone. She even warmed my slippers by the fire for me to come home to. That was a nice touch, especially this winter just gone. I must admit things could have been more passionate but it was convenient for both of us and at our age that means a lot. It wasn’t marital bliss but it was better than being alone and she, like me, was beyond the first flush of youth.’
    ‘Understood. Did she seem worried?’
    ‘No more than usual.’
    ‘What does that mean?’ Webster asked suddenly and perhaps a little too aggressively for