Dead In The Morning by Margaret Yorke

the happy bridegroom; what about him? Past mistresses, perhaps? And Timothy’s brother, who seems to have left the family fold? We don’t know anything much about him. And who visited Pantons last night in a Vauxhall Viva whose number I managed to make out as it passed me in the drive?”
    Jane stared at her brother. She looked frightened.
    “I don’t like this, Patrick,” she said. “I don’t like this theorising.”
    “It isn’t all theory. Some of this is fact,” Patrick said. “And only facts will do.”
    “Are you going to give that letter to the police?”
    “Not yet. Officially, we only know that Mrs Mackenzie has unfortunately died.” He paused. “We’ll see what happens at the inquest. By that time I may have found out some other secrets, enough to show me who has one important enough to yield a motive for murder.”

 
MONDAY
I
     
    Betty Ludlow had moved from the shrubbery to the herbaceous border. There were still vivid patches of colour in it, where Michaelmas daisies and coreopsis bloomed, and huge-faced daisies like giant sunflowers; but there were other, withered shoots to be cut down, and it was not too soon to start forking over the earth in readiness for winter. Across an area where only peonies and lupins were supposed to be, a rapid-spreading artemesia straggled, strangling weaker plants, and she attacked it fiercely; it would soon reappear as strongly as before.
    For a time, while she toiled, she thought of nothing but the work in hand. Her square figure bent and straightened, bent and straightened, as she turned the soil, creating order where there had been confusion. Presently, however, her mind harked back to the day before. What a dreadful Sunday it had been.
    She had been busy in the kitchen when Gerald telephoned with the news from Pantons. Derek was already in his study, poring over some papers he had brought back from the office, and not pleased at being interrupted, but when he heard the reason he drove over to his mother’s house at once. He soon returned, though, saying that nothing could be done. Alec Mackenzie had been told and was coming down by train. Gerald and the police between them would deal with him.
    Betty could not understand why the police were concerned. Something about sleeping pills and whisky, it seemed, but there must be some mistake. Mrs Mackenzie was in no way morbid; she would never have killed herself. Her son had said so too, evidently.
    It was the first time they had ever missed Sunday lunch at Pantons, except when they were away from home, and that was rarely. Betty had broached her freezer for a stew, and she, Derek and Tim had sat round the dining table in glum silence, trying to assume an appetite none had. Soon Tim had risen, and flounced out of the house with a toss of his long, shaggy hair, saying he was going away. She and Derek, left alone, had decided that Mrs Mackenzie had had a seizure and the chemist must have put up only half the prescription ordered; this was the only possible explanation.
    In the evening they had telephoned Martin to let him know what had happened. At first, there was no reply from the Chelsea house; it was after eleven o’clock when Martin and Sandra returned from wherever they had been and heard the news.
    Betty dug doggedly on, remembering all this. Derek had scarcely slept all night. For weeks now he had been wakeful; it was most unlike him, for normally he slumbered like a basking seal, occasionally snoring, for seven hours at least, while she lay restless, her mind darting about worrying over Tim and his long, greasy hair and failed exams. Sometimes, for a change, she agonised about Martin instead, puzzling over his relationship with his wife, who seemed so implacably cool and detached; impossible to imagine Sandra pregnant, or even, in the act of love, dishevelled. With such nocturnal reflections Betty shocked and alarmed herself, forgetting that few parents understood their children. She lay wooing sleep by