“It’s hard work, though, a lot of things to learn?”
“Mrs. Pike teaches me what to do. She shows me when I don’t know how.”
“She’s a nice lady, Mrs. Pike. It’s good to have someone like that to work with, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And what about Mrs. Turner? Was she a nice lady, too?”
Becky answered quietly. “Yes, sir.”
“What’s that, Becky?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was Mrs. Turner ever stern with you, Becky?”
Becky lowered her gaze. It had been a shock when Mrs. Turner shouted at her. She hadn’t meant to break the gravy boat the other week. It had fallen out of her hands somehow. She’d tried to catch it, but her fingers had been all thumbs and it had slipped through, landing on the floor with an almighty smash.
“Becky?”
“I broke something.”
“Something precious?”
“I don’t usually break things.”
“Was Mrs. Turner angry with you, Becky?”
“She got cross.”
“Had Mrs. Turner been crosser than usual lately?”
Becky glanced over at her sister’s perpetually protective face, as if she might find there a way to end the interview. She was uncomfortable with its turn toward the mishap with the gravy boat and Mrs. Turner’s mood.
“Becky?”
She’d been embarrassed when Mrs. Turner saw her drop the gravy boat; she’d felt like a clumsy oaf, and the song the children used to sing to her in the playground had come back into her head.
“Miss Baker?”
And then Mrs. Turner had started shouting at her, and Becky had felt her face go red and hot, and she’d run out of the house, all the way to the back of the rose garden, where she’d finally allowed herself to let go and cry.
“She doesn’t mean to be cross,” Becky said at last, her words coming in a rush. “It isn’t easy being up there by herself. And she’s had all of that extra paperwork to be sorting through lately. That’s why she needs me to help with the baby. She knows I can be trusted to care for the baby as if she’s my own.”
Nora Turner-Bridges was unable to shed any further light on how the netsuke rabbit came to be in Becky Baker’s possession. “Well, of course, I wasn’t in the room,” she was to say, when police put Becky’s version of events to her. “But...”
“But?”
“When Isabel asked Becky to join her, I thought she meant to fire the girl, not reward her.”
“Fire her?” Sergeant Kelly pressed. “Why would you have thought that?”
“Her voice was very serious—determined, even—and I thought immediately of the gravy boat. It was an heirloom piece and had meant a lot to Isabel.”
Mrs. Pike, however, scoffed at the notion that Mrs. Turner was planning to fire Becky. “I was the one that recommended the girl to Mrs. Turner, and I stand by that judgment. She’s a good girl. Not the brightest penny, but there isn’t a bad bone in her body, and always willing to learn.”
“Was she prone to making mistakes?” the police officer asked.
