Hilda Hopkins, Murder, She Knit Read online

  Hilda Hopkins, Murder, She Knit

  Vivienne Fagan

  StreetWise Publications

  Published by StreetWise Publications

  Suite 1/22 Waikanda Cres, Whalan, NSW 2770 Australia

  All Rights Reserved.

  http://streetwiseworldpublications.info

  ‘Hilda Hopkins, Murder, She Knit’ first published 2011

  Copyright Vivienne Fagan 2011

  Fagan, Vivienne 1948-

  ISBN 978-1-257-80845-8

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional. The publisher, author and their officers and assigns assume no responsibility for the misuse of wool or knitting machines. No yarn was harmed in the writing of this story.

  Dedication

  With grateful thanks to Kevin and Jamie-Lee for their advice regarding Police Procedure.

  Prologue

  “There’s three of the things in here, Sir” called out Police Constable Clive Barcroft, opening the door of a display cabinet in the corner of the sitting room. He glanced at a paper in his hand and compared the photographs shown there with the finely detailed faces of three knitted dolls who stood smartly to attention, held in place by doll stands.

  “Looks like Morris, Johnson and Bartlett, Sir. You know what, she’s bloody good.”

  The elderly woman sitting in the kitchen looked up as she heard the young constable’s comments. She smiled serenely and nodded.

  “There are another two in the front parlour,” added DS Claire Naylor, “either side of the mantelpiece.”

  “That will be Mr Abbott and Mr Tompkins,” murmured the old lady, “and you’ll find Mr Smith in my bedroom, on top of the bookcase, next to Abigail. Of course I didn’t make Abigail,” she continued vaguely, “men are much easier, they are craggier in the face and there’s not so much shaping, perhaps the odd beer belly but one doesn’t have to worry about the size of the bra cups.”

  The police woman who was standing behind the old lady’s chair looked baffled. Was the old dear senile, and wandering in her mind?

  Detective Inspector John Brent however had no such illusions.

  “So where have you hidden them all, Mrs Hopkins?” he asked gently, “we’ve found two in the coal cellar, and the one in the lock, where did you put the others?”

  Barcroft had appeared holding the three dolls in his arms. They were each about eighteen inches high, beautifully crafted with startlingly life like faces.

  “Oh, my little gentlemen,” crooned Hilda Hopkins, “you mustn’t take them away, they belong here.” She stood up. “I need to go to the toilet,” she announced, making for the door. “You’ll find Mr Abbott and Mr Tompkins behind the shed in the garden. They are not very deep, I just can’t handle a spade now like I used to.”

  She smiled benignly and headed towards the downstairs cloakroom as Brent moved towards the back door.

  “Leave those things on the table, Constable” he told Barcroft, “and come with me.”

  Claire Naylor hurried through from the front parlour and dropped two more dolls onto the table before following the men outside. The remaining officer, Barbara Grey examined the dolls as she watched the door of the cloakroom. They were all roughly the same height, but there the similarity ended. Each one had his own face and hair style. Barbara picked up the sheet of photographs of missing persons which Barcroft had laid on the table. The faces were very easy to identify. How had she done it? Some of the features had been formed by knitting in a contrast yarn, other details had been highlighted by the use of a fine permanent maker and fabric paints. Two of the dolls wore glasses, tiny little doll spectacles in perfect proportion to their faces. The clothes too were carefully crafted to suit each character, and fitted each doll perfectly.

  Barbara glanced towards the cloakroom door. The old lady had been in there some time, she hoped she hadn’t passed out or anything. Eventually she crossed over and rapped on the door panels.

  “Are you all right Mrs Hopkins,” she called.

  There was no answer. Barbara stood there, unsure what to do. She rattled the doorknob but the door was locked. Concerned now, she decided to go round the house and try to look in through the window. To think was to act, and she let herself out of the front door. The cloakroom window was opened to its fullest extent, the cloakroom itself was empty. How on earth had a woman of that age climbed out of the window? And more importantly, where was she now?

  PC Grey ran to the front gate and looked up and down Merrydown Crescent, nothing. Surely she couldn’t have gone through the back garden, not with all those police officers swarming all over it. She’d have to tell DI Brent that she had lost her. She’d lost the suspect, a woman who was alleged to have done away with six elderly men. He was not going to be best pleased.

  Chapter 1

  Hilda Hopkins sat in the corner of a café in Midchester and pensively stirred her cup of tea. She’d been lucky when she had left the house after scrambling through the window. She’d slipped down Merrydown Crescent and turned the corner just as the Midchester bus trundled along the main road. She’d had her bus pass in her cardigan pocket along with a small wallet of credit cards. Once arrived in Midchester, the neighbouring town to her own small village, Hilda had quickly cleared the dead men’s accounts of all their remaining money. Serves them right, she had thought, if the Banks or the Police hadn’t got round to closing the accounts yet, what did they expect? She could put the money to good use.

  She wasn’t really hungry yet, the excitement of the morning had robbed her of her appetite. The appearance at her door of a senior police officer and his team had been something of a shock. She wondered how they had got on to her. She took a sip of tea. Well, she’d think about that later, she’d have a slap up meal in a good restaurant and consider the problem fully. In the meantime she needed to find somewhere to rest. She finished the tea, paid up and left.

  Along the road were two or three charity shops. Hilda wandered into the first one and bought herself a slightly battered looking suitcase on wheels. The next shop provided her with a serviceable, if dowdy coat and woolly hat, together with a slightly shabby but good quality tweed skirt, a couple of blouses and a woolen jumper. She wrinkled her nose over the jumper. A bought one, how long was it since she had actually bought a jumper? She much preferred to make her own on her trusty knitting machine. Still, needs must when the devil drives. Underwear next, but not from here though, Hilda did have a touch of fastidiousness about her, there was an M&S further along the High Street, they would have nighties too.

  Everything fitted neatly into her suitcase. Hilda donned the hat and coat, and pottered along the road looking every inch the suburban pensioner intent on an afternoon‘s shopping. She entered the portals of a Journey Lodge and approached the counter. It took several minutes for the young woman at Reception to notice her. Hilda felt the old stirrings of resentment. No-one ever took any notice of her, she might as well be invisible. She paid for a room for two nights with cash, filling out the forms with the name and address of one of her neighbours. She was handed the key, directed to the lift, and otherwise ignored.

  Back at 46 Merrydown Crescent, Barbara Grey surreptitiously wiped her eyes dry. DI Brent had been furious, and had wasted no words in his opinion of someone who could lose an elderly woman in a tiny under stairs cloakroom. Clive Barcroft gave her a sympathetic grin as they returned to their patrol car preparatory to hunting for the woman. John Brent was a good bloke to work for, but he did have a rough edge to his tongue if he considered the occasion demanded it. Scenes of crime tape festooned the neat suburban garden, and a tent had been erected to cover the excavations behind the
shed.

  “Well at least she hasn’t actually been arrested yet, Barb,” said Barcroft sympathetically, “if she’d already been charged with all those murders the shit really would have hit the fan.”

  Barbara Grey shuddered, “I know, thirteen days’ pay docked and a Final Warning letter, my career wouldn’t have survived that, Clive.”

  “Let’s get on with it,” he murmured, “the old dear couldn’t have gone far.”

  “She’s gone far enough to get me one hell of a bollocking,” replied Grey resentfully, “I really want to track her down Clive, and snap a pair of cuffs onto her wrists. She won’t bolt a second time.”

  They had reached the end of Merrydown Crescent, Barcroft paused to let a bus go past. Grey read the destination board, “Midchester Town Centre”.

  “She might have caught that bus, or rather another one going to Midchester. It’s a fair sized place, she could lose herself there to some extent. Did you see her Clive? Whoever would have thought she would be capable of anything like this, let alone carry it out. Do you think anyone helped her? She looks like a fat Miss Marple.”

  “Except the Marple woman is always on the right side of the law,” replied Barcroft.

  “She lured six old men into her house as lodgers…..”

  “Paying guests” interrupted Barcroft, “remember she said her gentlemen had been there as paying guests.”

  “Whatever,” snapped Grey, “and then she did away with them. Wonder what the post mortems will show, poison do you reckon?”

  “Well it is a women’s thing, generally, poison,” Barcroft reflected, “but it’s those doll effigies that spook me. Did you see them?”

  Grey nodded. She had been examining them when Mrs Hopkins had scrambled out of the window and made her escape.

  “They are very clever,” she acknowledged. “Why do you reckon she made them? Some sort of trophy?”

  Barcroft shrugged his shoulders,

  “I’ve no idea.”

  They drove in silence for some time before entering the environs of Midchester. Barcroft drove slowly along the High Street while Grey craned her neck and inspected every grey haired old lady, and there were a lot of them about at this time of the day. They circumnavigated the town, criss crossing the streets but there was no sign of their quarry.

  “Either gone to ground, or not here at all,” decided Barcroft. “We’d better get back.”

  Chapter 2

  Hilda returned to her hotel room from the restaurant where she had treated herself to the promised slap up meal. She settled in an armchair and turned on the local news. She was the first item.

  “Police are concerned about the whereabouts of Hilda Hopkins,” here a photograph flashed onto the screen. “They wish to speak to her regarding some irregularities concerning lodgers who resided in her house.”

  “Paying guests, not lodgers,” fumed Hilda, who was nonetheless pleased with the photograph they had used. It was a copy of her bus pass photo, taken when she was still colouring her hair a rich brown. Now it was snow white, and her skin, which had been of the famous English peaches and cream variety, had, over the past few months, crumpled into wrinkles like a dried out apple. She bore little resemblance now to the smooth skinned dark haired individual in the photograph. She would be able to fade into the background for a little while longer.

  There had been a brief view of the house, neatly roped off with blue police tape, and a hint of the activity still going on in the back garden. She would go to prison when she was caught of course. She was realistic enough to appreciate that, but she wondered if they would let her keep the dolls, her little gentlemen. Would they have craft classes or clubs in prison? Maybe if she got a long sentence she would be able to have her knitting machine sent in. She would like that, machine knitting was her passion.

  She giggled to herself. What would she give to see the smug faces of her neighbours and her ex work colleagues when they found out what she had been doing. Would they believe she was capable of carrying all that out on her own? They hadn’t found Mr Smith yet by all accounts. Mr Bartlett and Mr Morris had been in the coal cellar. She was rather glad they had been discovered because truth to tell, they had been starting to smell. Nothing too obtrusive just yet, just a lingering miasma in the air, but it certainly wouldn‘t have improved with time.

  Mr Abbott and Mr Tompkins were behind the shed in the garden. That had been hard work even though they were in shallow graves. She had scattered the loose earth over the rest of the garden, but there had been so much of it! That was why she had dumped Mr Johnson in the canal lock just beyond the end of her garden. She had had to leave him in the shed for a day, he was much too heavy to drag all the way there in one go. All her gentlemen had been of slight build in life, but goodness, they had been so heavy once they were dead.

  Maybe she could say that Mr Smith had killed the others, and had disappeared once he knew the old bill were on his track. She could make out she had been his unwilling accomplice, too scared to resist. That might be a bit difficult though, Mr Smith had disappeared from her house long before Mr Bartlett and Mr Morris the two men who had each ended up in the coal cellar, had arrived. She should have thought of that sooner, stayed in the house and passed herself off as a frightened vulnerable old lady. Running away would simply complicate matters, unless of course she had believed that Mr Smith was going to take her away from all this? She could say he was supposed to meet her, but he hadn’t turned up. It wouldn’t be the first time she had been dumped. Mr Hopkins had walked out on her less than six months into their marriage.

  “Just popping out to get some fags, love,” he had said, “won‘t be long.”

  That had been well over thirty years ago and he still hadn’t found his way back home. Not even when her widowed mother had died and Hilda had inherited the three bedroomed semi, so much nicer than the furnished flat she had been renting.

  She would have an early night, and go for a leisurely breakfast in the morning. What a pity she hadn’t thought to buy a book to read in the charity shop.

  Hilda changed into her nightdress, and settled herself on the bed. It had been a tiring day. She drifted half in and out of sleep, mulling over the events of the past three years.

  Chapter 3

  Hilda had retired after thirty odd undistinguished years of Local Government service. She hadn’t managed to save much over the years, it seemed to her that everything she earned went on the nitty gritty of living. Plus of course she had her hobby, she was an ardent machine knitter. Over the years she had collected every magazine and book about machine knitting that she could find. She had also spent large amounts of money on yarn and equipment. So once she stopped working and found herself existing on a small pension she found that she really did need a second income. She briefly considered selling the jumpers and other bits and pieces that she made on her machine, but there wasn’t much call for that sort of thing these days. Machine knitting had had its heyday, it was a craft only followed now by a small but enthusiastic number of committed adherents.

  Hilda thought about the layout of her house. She had changed the box room into a small knitting room, and she herself slept in the back bedroom. It was a little smaller than the master bedroom, but it was away from the road so a bit quieter. Not that there was much traffic passing around Merrydown Crescent. She decided that she could let the larger bedroom out and earn some money from the rent.

  She had deliberated long and hard about what sort of person to have as a lodger. Certainly not a student, another woman perhaps? But Hilda didn’t really get on too well with other women. She had made no lasting friends at work, and she had been asked to leave her knitting club for constantly causing upset there. They had just been jealous of her of course, she thought bitterly, she had been much cleverer at making things than the others. They had tried to say her knitting tensions were wrong, her knitting was too loose, it needed to be tighter for well-fitting cuffs and welts, and that Emmie woman had said that her mattress s
titch wasn’t even. Hers wasn’t any better in Hilda’s opinion, and she had had no compunction in saying so. Naturally the stupid woman had burst into tears, and the Club leader had suggested that Hilda might like to find another club. Hilda knew that she had been better than any of them. It was the same old story, people were always envious of her because she was far superior than any of them.

  So, a male lodger. No, a paying guest. That sounded much better. Someone with a bit of age and dignity, no riff raff. A professional man. But then, wouldn’t a professional man already have his own home, would there be any who would just want a room? She had worried round the problem like a terrier gnawing at a bone. In the end she decided she would see who actually replied to her advertisement in the newsagents’ window in Midchester. There’d been no point advertising locally, she knew there were no spare men looking for accommodation in her village. They would have to share the bathroom with her, but she would make out a rota, some sort of timetable so they wouldn’t both be trying to get in there at the same time. She would cook the meals and they could eat at the kitchen table and the guest would have the use of the sitting room, but the front parlour was going to be private for her. She would just have to see who would turn up.

  What turned up was Mr Arthur Smith. Sixty-six years old, widowed, childless and sick and tired of living on the fourth floor of a building with no lift. He was a small slight man, very nearly totally bald, and very quietly spoken. Hilda found him eminently suitable. He liked his bed room, and was quite content to sit in the sitting room all day watching television. He ate the meals which Hilda put in front of him. She wasn’t a particularly good cook, although of course she believed that each meal she produced had a touch of haute cuisine about it, and Arthur Smith was canny enough to thank her gravely each day for his meals. He was a man who liked a quiet life, and he could read something in Hilda’s face which warned him not to upset her.