Episode 70 - The Affairs of Edwina

“You’re mad.  I think you want to believe that of him, and, now that he’s not here to defend himself, you can give free rein to such a fanciful notion.”

“It’s true.”

“It can’t be.  He was with me the night she died.”

“He was not.  Not unless I saw his double sitting in a car outside our flat several hours before Cathy died.”

Angela studied her mother’s face for any tell tale signs she had been caught out on a lie, but as always, her mother’s expression was set in concrete.  She always was an excellent card player.

“It would have been dark, and it could have been anyone in that car.”

A chink in the armour, a tell tale sign that her mother’s resolve is wavering.

She remembered telling her mother where she planned to go, though not the exact address, for just such a reason, that she would tell her husband.

It had only been a matter of time before he tracked her down.

Angela had thought she had seen him once before, out in the street, watching the front door of the apartment block, and thought at the time it could not be possible.  Now, after all this time, and with other information she had discovered about her father, she’d been right, it had been him.

“You choose to think what you like, Mother.  I know what and who I saw that night.  It was him.  He found out where Cathy and I had moved to.  Did you tell him?”

“No.  Why would I?  You asked me not to, though you didn’t exactly say why.”

“You knew all along why.”

“Then, why didn’t you tell the police.”

“I did.”

Ah, a flicker, just a small tic in the left eye.  Perhaps something she didn’t know.

It precipitated a change in her mother’s demeanour.

“It was never mentioned.”

“No, because by the time I did, Uncle Al had been fitted up for the murder.  Father said he was trying to help him, but incriminated him instead.  You lied when you said you were with my father that night.”

Her mother shook her head slightly.  “You were not here.  You think you saw your father, but you didn’t.”

Angela smiled.

“No, I didn’t, but someone else knew positively you were not with father.  You couldn’t be in two places at once.  Not even you.”

The look, now, of fear, Angela had struck the nerve.

“Who is this someone?”  Spoken in a tone that suggested she already knew the answer.

“Brightwater, of course.  You were sleeping with him.  So was Aunt Jennifer, but I suspect you found out and that’s why you broke it off.”

“How could you possibly know all this?”

“Because Brightwater told me, just before he died.”

© Charles Heath 2016-2019