The Spring Cleaning Murders by Dorothy Cannell

stock-still, her hands flat at her sides. “Mummy hadn’t been feeling well and she wasn’t good with pain. One night she and Daddy took an overdose of sleeping tablets after celebrating with a candlelight supper. Much the best way out for both of them, because he couldn’t have lived without her.”
    “You found them?”
    “The next morning.”
    “What an awful shock!”
    “Oh, yes!” she said, moving her hands. “But life goes on. I felt disloyal at first—if you can understand, Mrs. Haskell—selling off the big old house and most of the furniture, but I knew if I didn’t make a new start at once, I never would. That before very long I’d be one of those eccentric old women living for her cats.”
    “I’m sure you were a very good daughter,” I said lamely.
    Again Clarice Whitcombe glanced towards the mirror. “Well, it wasn’t,” she continued wistfully, “as though I was much good at anything else. Not brainy or artistic like some.”
    “I see you have a piano,” I had caught sight of the grand through the open sitting-room door. “Did you bring that from your parents’ home?”
    “Oh, yes, my mother was a great one for banging out a tune.”
    “Do you play?”
    “I always wanted to...”—her cheeks were again faintly flushed—”to have. . . more time to practice. But unfortunately I haven’t been able to do so recently.” She wrapped one hand around her other wrist. “A bout of tendinitis, not all that painful, but the doctor says that any strain could make it worse.” Once more her eyes didn’t quite meet mine; but why would she lie about such a thing? “The children,” she said suddenly, “we’d better get back to them.”
    “I never trust them long on their own,” I agreed, following her down the hall. “Tam in particular is such a mischief. And I would hate to find them having a sword fight with the knives and forks.”
    “You’ll have something to eat? One thing I can do is cook.” Clarice Whitcombe was pushing open the dining-room door as she spoke. “There’s so much I’d like to ask you about decorating this house. As I said, I’m not artistic, but I want the place to look welcoming. And even I can tell that my furniture isn’t quite right here—" She broke off. But not because Abbey and Tam were up to tricks.
    My little girl was seated at the table spooning steamed pudding and custard neatly into her mouth. Her brother was nowhere in sight, although his plate had been cleaned down to the china pattern.
    “Hello, Mummy.” Abbey beamed at me. “Tam’s gone home.” She turned so that she was kneeling on her chair, waving a sticky spoon at the open French windows that led to a path along the side of the house. “It was bad of him not to tell Miss Welcome bye-bye, wasn’t it? I hope he don’t fall into the sea.” She now sounded anxious.
    What I felt bordered on hysteria. How could he have just gone? He was only three.
    “I should have taken them with me to answer the door.” Miss Whitcombe was clearly struggling to become a tower of strength. “I’m so sorry for keeping you talking. But it doesn’t do to go on about that, does it? You go after your little boy, Mrs. Haskell, and I’ll keep Abbey till you find him.”
    She took my daughter in her arms as I raced outside, to stand like a tree swaying in the wind for a moment. Which way to go? Would Tam have cut around the back of the house, through that dark, wooded area? Or would he have taken the longer but straighter route home, along The Cliff Road? Deciding the latter course was the more probable, I somehow managed to uproot my legs, which felt as though they had been planted deep in the soil for decades.
    “Tam, darling!” I called as I ran. “Can you hear me? Please answer Mummy!” Lurching around the corner of Hawthorn Lane, I experienced the conflicting emotions that every mother knows at one time or other. The vow to God that if He would but restore my son, I would smother Tam with kisses