I took a swig of my coffee, it was cool enough to swallow.
“When Frank died I thought Jennifer might be back for the funeral but she wasn’t. It’s not the sort of thing you can ask about really, though people noticed. So, I knew she’d not been back to visit but I hadn’t realised that there had been no word at all until Roger called the other day.”
Mrs Clerkenwell had made no mention of a possible pregnancy, presumably Barbara Pickering had not referred to the disgrace her daughter had brought on the family as she had when talking to her son.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit extreme,” I asked her, “to sever all contact, just because she dropped out of university?”
“Well, yes,” she said hesitantly, “but then Barbara gave me the impression that it was Jennifer’s doing.” She frowned and thought for a minute. “Mind you, I don’t know what sort of reception she’d have got if she had come back and wasn’t making anything of her life.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, they were awfully strict. Some of it was to do with all their rules, from their church, the do’s and don’ts. They wouldn’t touch a drink and everything was either approved or denied. I could see Jennifer was rejecting all that even before she left home. They were very…intolerant I thought. We had a bit of a run-in years back. I was trying to organise some ecumenical services, different churches coming together and I knew Barbara and Frank were ‘Children of Christ’ but they were impossible; they’d no interest in building bridges, you’d have thought I’d made an improper suggestion the way they reacted. He started going on about undesirables and riff-raff and how could they vet the people involved.” She laughed. “I don’t know. I never knew them well but it didn’t strike me as a very happy household.”
“Were there arguments?”
“Not between Frank and Barbara I don’t think, but sometimes I’d hear Jennifer shouting at her mother – teenage tantrums I suppose. And Frank would lay the law down every so often. I’d hear him shouting sometimes. He was very old-fashioned, all king and country. To be honest I think having Jennifer was probably completely bewildering for him.”
“So you think it was Jennifer who made the break?”
“From what I was told. And it didn’t sound as though they had done anything about finding her, I suppose they thought she was old enough to look after herself. And Frank was very ill, you know, that wasn’t long after.”
“What was it?”
